


Spellbound

by Antiquity



Category: Batman (Comics), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Amortentia, Aurors, Exams, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Pining, Quidditch, Resolved Sexual Tension, Slice of Life, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-15
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-08-15 02:42:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 59,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8039287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Antiquity/pseuds/Antiquity
Summary: Entering his final year at Hogwarts, Dick hopes to make it through with as little mayhem as possible, especially with N.E.W.Ts coming up in June. The castle is still standing, though, even after potions experiments of varying success, disagreements over Quidditch, his and Wally's pranks, and the odd kidnapping - how hard can it be?But there are three milestones he has to get through first - his seventeenth birthday, exams, and graduation - before he can really think about what to do once out of Hogwarts, and beginning and end it all circles back to Bruce.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Here, have a Hogwarts AU! This is probably the only multi-chapter fic I've ever finished...but it is finished, and I'll be updating it twice a week(ish). It was a lot fun to write, and I hope the fact that it's mostly the school year with some wonderful UST thrown in doesn't put anyone off. There's none of J.K Rowling's amazing plot, and no nemesis waiting till after exams to disrupt the peace ;)
> 
> Two notes: 
> 
> One - I have not tagged this as underage as in the wizarding world, majority is reached at age 17. Dick will be 17 before he begins his fully consensual romantic relationship. However, I know this is considered underage by our standards, so if it upsets you please read carefully, or not at all.
> 
> Two - I've played around with everyone's ages, so the original 8 members of the YJ team plus Barbara, Karen and Mal are all the same age, and Bart, Garfield, La'gaan, Jaime, Tim and Victor Stone all aged down into first years together. As for houses, I chose what I think would work for the YJ incarnations of the characters but I know many of them, Dick especially, can go anywhere. It's just my interpretation and I hope they make sense :)
> 
> Lastly, to the indescribably wonderful adayofjoy, for all your endless support and encouragement. I hope this foray into your honorary OTP makes you smile!

Artemis is the first one Dick sees after wending his way through the noisy, bustling crowd gathered on Platform 9 ¾ for the start of term and boarding a vacant compartment on the Hogwarts Express.

 

“Artemis!”

 

She looks up, and it’s probably only because Dick’s known her for seven years now that he thinks she looks like the same person in the sleek and stylish jeans and jacket she’s wearing now compared to the black billowing Hogwarts robes they don halfway through the train trip.  

 

“Hey, Dick,” Artemis grins, and heads over, dragging her trunk. Together they stow it along with his in the carriage racks and flop back into their seats, stretching out while they can and waiting for the others.

 

“How was your summer? Sorry I didn’t reply to your last owl but I figured I’d be seeing you today anyway.”

 

“It was fine –” Artemis cuts herself off and jack-knifes upright to grab his elbows, a serious look of her face. Dick immediately tenses as he flicks his eyes over their surroundings, hand reaching for his wand.  

 

“You will not believe what I found out yesterday.”

 

“What?” Dick asks, relaxing slightly and leaving his wand where it is. Artemis is one of the most pragmatic people he knows, but every now and then she likes to add a dash of drama to keep them on their toes.

 

“You know how during the last few months of last term, I thought Jade was up to something?”

 

“Yeah? You were getting random cryptic letters whenever she felt in the mood to write from wherever the heck she is.”

 

Artemis nods, eyes widening. “So I found out yesterday....”

 

Dick grips her shoulders too, caught up in the suspense. “What?”

 

“She has a boyfriend, and not any boyfriend – Roy. Roy Harper.”

 

Dick gapes at her. “Roy Harper as in, the Roy who was three years above us at Hogwarts?”

 

“Yep,” she nods solemnly, enjoying his shock. “Him.”

 

They stare at each other for a second, and then Dick leans back and says contemplatively, “You know what, I’m not even surprised. Took them long enough.”

 

Artemis throws up her hands. “That’s what I said! You can’t spend three years going on and on about someone without expecting things to end up this way!”

 

“You should know,” Dick snarks at her, “do you know how many years I spent listening to you and Wally moan and bitch about each other? _The lady –_ and gentleman _– doth protest too much, methinks._ ”

 

She kicks his shin. “That’s not the same thing at all. Wally and I are in different houses; Jade and Roy spent six years in Slytherin together and after she graduated he spent another year there moaning about not having a proper nemesis any more. I mean, like, come on!”

 

“Fair enough,” he grins, and looks over as the compartment door slides open. “Hey, Kaldur! Great to see you!”

 

“And you, my friends,” Kaldur replies, shaking Dick’s hand and hugging Artemis before turning to introduce them to the young boy with rather protuberant reddish-brown eyes standing a little behind him. “This is Lagan Seamore; Mayor Curry asked me to see him safely to Hogwarts. Lagan, these are Artemis Crock and Richard Grayson.”

 

He bounds in and shakes their hands. “Stay fluid, minnows,” he says, and Artemis’ eyebrows nearly hit her hairline. Dick grins back at the boy, amused by the eleven-year-old’s enthusiasm. Atlanta-On-Sea has a relatively small wizarding community among the seaside village’s muggle population – and Bruce still finds it ironic the mayor is a wizard – so Dick knows what it’s like to be excited about meeting new witches and wizards. 

 

“Congratulations on making Head Boy!” Dick beams at Kaldur, sitting back down and curling up in his seat so Kaldur can reach the luggage rack. “You really deserve it.”

 

“Thank you very much,” Kaldur smiles, and Dick tries not to be obvious in scrutinising Kaldur’s face for any hint of remaining distress from last term. He knows having your long-term crush choose your best friend over you will take some time to heal, but he hopes Kaldur found some measure of peace in the holidays – one of Wally’s recent letters reported they had all made it their duty to drag him out either to Diagon Alley, the Kent family farm or London in general every week or so to make sure he wasn’t always stuck in Atlanta-On-Sea with Garth and Tula just a few streets away. Outwardly Kaldur doesn’t look heartbroken, but Dick knows Kaldur’s level-headed pragmatism is just as good as his own cocky façade for concealment.

 

From the exasperated look Kaldur tosses to both Artemis and Dick, their subtle scrutiny hasn’t been that subtle. “I am quite well, I assure you,” he sighs, storing his and Lagan’s trunks.

 

Dick purses his lips but doesn’t push, asking instead, “Who’s Head Girl?”

 

“Rhiannon Sheridan.”

 

“Cool,” he says, “It’s been a while since a Slytherin was picked.”

 

“Indeed,” Kaldur answers. “I think we’ll work well together.” He sits by the window, and Lagan, finally seeming to have stared his fill at Dick’s dozing owl Etraxsus in his cage, plops down by the door opposite Artemis and watches the bustle outside. His slightly protuberant eyes and wide mouth give him the look of an expectant fish, and Dick immediately feels bad about thinking that when he himself was a tiny kid almost swimming in his robes. He turns away and also directs his attention to the corridors, rueful grin on his face.

 

Wally finds them first, and creates a bit of a traffic-jam when he leaves his trunk in the aisle in order to sweep Artemis up into a kiss, fist-bump Kaldur, and tackle Dick in a bear hug. Eventually the glares prompt him to move the trunk inside and then he introduces them to Bart, his...Dick is never sure how the West-Allen-Garrick family tree works but it’s probably safer to say cousin, who is going into his first year of Hogwarts. Lagan beams at him and soon the two are involved in a detailed discussion about the merits of coastal versus city living. When Megan, trying out a much shorter style of her favourite shade of red hair, arrives a minute later with her own younger brother Garfield in tow, the three boys hit it off immediately.

 

While they sit and chatter, Megan bestows warm hugs on everyone and demands the non-classified details of Dick’s summer, most of which was trekking through the Carpathians on the trail of smugglers illegally exporting a rare and timid Demiguise from its usual home in the Far East.

 

“No injuries, Miss M, promise!” Dick laughs, before Zatanna’s arrival distracts the metamorphmagus. She’s just finished stowing her trunk when Connor gets there, and the compartment is well and truly full as the train finally pulls away from the station.

 

“No, don’t worry about seats,” Kaldur says, “I have to coordinate the prefects and receive recommendations for the year ahead. I should be finished before lunch.”

 

Dick, Megan and Zatanna pull themselves up to join Kaldur on his way to the prefects’ compartment, collecting their robes to change into on the way. Honestly, Dick thinks he and Zatanna look like matching books ends with their hair and eyes and their blue and black robes; he’s more than ready to move on, up and out. Dick’s been unofficially and mostly illegally ‘out there’ in the wizarding world with Bruce since he was ten, but he’s so ready for his seventeenth birthday. It’ll finally make him an adult, able to use magic outside of Hogwarts without the stupefying amounts of red tape Bruce has to wade through or burn in the fireplace to pretend he never saw, and it puts him that much nearer to graduation. He wants to get out there properly, legally, in his own name and with his own plans.

 

On the other hand...Dick’s uncertain enough of his immediate future that part of him is looking forward to the comforting normalcy of school. His birthday, his N.E.W.Ts and his graduation are his milestones in both chronological order and in order of importance – what happens afterwards is dependent on all three and on Bruce. Beginning and end, it all circles back to Bruce. 

 

Kaldur senses Dick’s mind is not on their upcoming duties, but he’s being doing them long enough that the Head Boy can release the prefects after the allocation of tasks if they want to go back to their own compartment. Dick salutes the rest, promises Gryffindor seventh year prefect Raquel they’ll meet up at the library next week to swap summer spells and reading lists, and heads off, Zatanna a step behind him.

 

“So, you,” she says, brushing what he’s fairly sure is non-existent lint off his shoulder – like Alfred would let him out in public without pristine robes – and smiling, “how was your summer?”

 

He grins back. “Long, and pretty epic. Bruce and I were in the Carpathians for most of July, tracking some Demiguise smugglers.” Not strictly true, but their two-week detour to Hungary on the rumoured trail of two feral banshees under the thrall of a Dark Wizard is classified under Bruce’s Auror duties. “How was yours? How’s your dad?”

 

“He’s fine, still playing around with that helmet relic the Ministry asked him to look at. My summer was fairly uneventful, which was nice after last year’s excitement. It only needed you to make it complete – we got everyone else to Fortescue’s Ice Cream in our trip to Diagon Ally.” Zatanna pouts teasingly at him as they reach their compartment.

 

“Yeah, sorry I had to miss that. We weren’t near any Floo Networks and Bruce still won’t let me Apparate alone.”

 

“You’re underage, Mr I-can-produce-a-corporeal-Patronus,” Wally ribs as Dick drops into a seat next to him, “and that makes Apparating illegal.” 

 

Garfield brightens. “Wow, can you really? Sis said you could do a proper Patronus but Uncle John says it’s very advanced magic.”

 

“Yeah,” Dick smiles, “been doing it since I was fourteen. Bruce – that’s Professor Wayne to you – is an Auror and the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts.”

 

“What does that have to do with anything?” Lagan asks. 

 

“Ah, Lagan,” Bart says with an air of worldly wisdom, “clearly you don’t eavesdrop as much as you should. Grandpa Barry said Professor Wayne took Dick in when he was nine and started working at Hogwarts a few years later because he, and I’m quoting here, ‘doesn’t agree with the school’s lacklustre security measures.’”

 

“Grandpa?” Dick mutters out of the corner of his mouth, “I thought Barry was your uncle.”

 

“Don’t ask,” Wally groans back.

 

Garfield is clearly hanging onto Bart’s every word even though his expression is sceptical under his green hair. When he turns it blue a second later, it’s obvious he also got the metamorphmagus gene. “Why does Professor Wayne care about school security?” he asks. That he doesn’t ask why Bruce is Dick’s guardian in the first place tells Dick that Garfield knows at least the basics of his life story, probably from Megan.

 

“Bruce doesn’t really think they’re lacklustre – and consider me both disconcerted and impressed, Bart – but he’s a naturally paranoid guy. Everything can be more secure if you try hard enough.”

 

“And you almost got kidnapped with exhausting regularity when we were younger,” Artemis adds nonchalantly, leaning around Wally to poke his shoulder.

 

Garfield, Bart and Lagan gape at him. “What do you mean, kidnapped?” they demand in unison. 

 

Dick groans internally.

 

“I’m not surprised you don’t know. Wayne came down hard on the _Prophet_ to suppress a lot of your earlier adventures,” Conner says, and then rolls his eyes. “You should have heard Lois, she was furious.”

 

“To be fair,” Wally says, “no one likes hearing about security breaches at Hogwarts. I’m still surprised we didn’t start any riots or mass panics, but most of the students there at the time have graduated. Geez, we’re in seventh year, how freaky is that!”

 

“Shh, cuz,” Bart flaps a hand in Wally’s general direction, almost clipping Garfield across the nose, “I want to hear the story!”

 

“Nosy,” sniffs Wally, leaning across to try and steal one of Zatanna’s Fizzing Whizbees. She bats his hand away and clutches the sweets protectively to her chest.

 

“Knowledge is power, man!” Bart throws his arms up, careful this time not to take Garfield’s head off. 

 

“Careful,” Dick grins, “it was that kind of thinking that got Wally and me into Ravenclaw.” He can still hear the Hat’s quiet disembodied voice in his head sometimes, telling him in amusement that he had qualities suited to all of the Houses; he had been so close to Hatstalling it still makes his stomach twist in anxiety. Sitting on that stool as the minutes ticked past, Dick had started to panic that he wasn’t going to fit anywhere and that he’d have to go home to Bruce in unwanted disgrace and face the terrifying possibility that Bruce with his Pure-blood lineage wouldn’t even want a Half-blood circus ward rejected by Hogwarts. A minute later, the Hat had smugly informed him that his desire to know and to gain power by improving himself set him nicely in, “RAVENCLAW!” 

 

Bart shrugs. “I doubt I’ll end up there, not brainy enough. Either Hufflepuff or Gryffindor for me.”

 

“Hufflepuff!” Garfield cheers, “It’s a family thing. You should have seen Sis make sure her new hair colour matched Hufflepuff’s yellow.”

 

“I don’t know where I’m going,” says Lagan, “I’m the first in my family to go to Hogwarts. We don’t have many wizards in my village; Kaldur and Garth and Tula, who I think graduated last year, are the only ones I know.”

 

“Start a new tradition,” Garfield says. “I’m the seventh in my family, Sis is the sixth. Our grandfather was the first to go here.”

 

“I like your sister,” Lagan announces, apropos of nothing. Garfield looks at him like he just said he wanted to see millionaire potions supplier Lex Luthor run naked through a field of daisies, and Conner just snorts as he and Artemis in their red and black robes lean forward to fist-bump Bart in approval. Just as Dick thinks he’s managed to successfully change the subject, Garfield gives himself a beard, strokes it pompously, and requests a story, old chap.  

 

“Really? The beginning of a new Quidditch league season, reports of Chinese Fireballs picking off rice-farmers, and the latest Celestina Warbeck concerts aren’t interesting enough?” 

 

“We’ve heard it before,” Conner agrees, flipping through the latest copy of the _Daily Prophet_ to find his brother’s article on the increase of black market goods coming out of Belgium. 

 

“We’ve lived it,” Artemis laughs wryly, tugging the crossword section of the paper out of Conner’s grasp and rummaging for a quill. 

 

“I didn’t,” sighs Zatanna, and Dick looks askance at her. 

 

“Not something you should wish for, Z,” he says. “Besides, you were too cool to hang out with us in first year; you, Barbara and Karen were like the eleven-year-old Ravenclaw holy trinity.”

 

Zatanna blushes and drops her eyes. “I...it’s not my fault you and Wally were total mischief-making nerds,” she says, trying for nonchalance. 

 

Artemis cackles. “Oh, Dick was a little troll and Wally was a loud-mouthed idiot!”

 

The two maligned friends share a look of long-suffering commiseration at the cruelty of the world.

 

“Come on, enough with the reminiscing like old people,” Lagan complains. 

 

“Dick?” Wally looks at him, concern written all over his best friend’s face. Dick shrugs. Those nightmares are rare now, and his more recent ‘adventures’ usually take centre stage. The British wizarding world knows about his first kidnapping, primarily because it was the first and had been well-publicised due to Bruce’s status and wealth; the other three attempts either weren’t witnessed by many people or were suppressed by Bruce, Headmistress Prince and the Head of the Auror Office, James Gordon. There are rumours and stories running rife at Hogwarts – it’s a school full of curious teenagers, of course news will spread like Fiendfyre – but nothing has ever been confirmed and with his last year dawning Dick hopes to make it through with all their reputations intact, especially since N.E.W.Ts are awaiting them in June. 

 

“Alright,” Dick says reluctantly, “I’ll give you the basic outlines so you won’t believe some mutated, made-up version floating somewhere in the corridors, but don’t go spreading it around: Bruce is both Auror and professor, and has a nasty habit of knowing everything.”

 

Wally, Artemis, Conner and Zatanna all groan in whole-hearted agreement as Garfield solemnly draws a cross over his heart and then fixes his eyes eagerly on Dick. 

 

He sighs and steels himself. Talking about it has gotten easier over time, but Dick thinks he’ll never be quite as brave as Bruce, who was willing to lay bare his own wounds, his own trauma, so a grief-stricken nine-year-old would know he wasn’t alone.

 

“Well, my parents...they were – they were murdered when I was nine, in a circus performance in Romania. Bruce was in the audience on Auror business and took me in, and spoke to Headmistress Prince about enrolling me where he went to school. I wasn’t registered at Durmstrang or Beauxbatons, so it made sense. The first time I was kidnapped was just after Christmas our first year at Hogwarts by one of Bruce’s enemies, a Dark Wizard the press called Two-Face for his partial disfiguration at the hands of a vampire and for his capriciousness in his dealings. Two-Face thought he could get a ransom out of Bruce and use me as leverage to make Bruce back off from investigating his activities. He sent me a forged letter in Bruce’s writing and asked me to meet him by the Lake at the very border of Hogwarts –”

 

“And you went?” Bart interrupts, a little incredulously. 

 

“I’d been expecting a letter from Bruce, and he’d taken me out of school before on the hunt for my parents’ killer,” he replies coolly, and Wally subtly shifts his arm till it’s pressed up against Dick’s in silent support.

 

There’s so much unsaid, between them all and between the lines. He’d rather not tell Bart, Garfield and Lagan about learning to live with Bruce and Alfred, slowly recovering under Bruce’s hesitantly tender care and Alfred’s bracing pragmatism; won’t tell them about being cast into confusion once more when Bruce started taking longer and longer classified missions, leaving Dick back in Wayne Manor restless and anxious for his safety; can’t tell them about stowing away in Bruce’s luggage just before his first term at Hogwarts with a new wand in childish hope he would alleviate the injuries Bruce seemed to come home with. He can’t talk about Bruce’s fearful fury at his discovery in the middle of a tiny Bulgarian town under the thumb of Thorne, a ruthless Dark Wizard with ties to the man who murdered the Graysons, and neither can he recount the occasions after that where he accompanied Bruce on certain missions in his determination to find his parents’ killer. People believe Bruce capable of a lot of things, but Dick knows that his friends would never really understand Bruce’s reasons for taking a child out on notoriously dangerous Auror assignments.

 

The arguments between Bruce and Diana Prince about taking Dick out of school when Bruce found a mission related to Zucco also echo loudly and fiercely in his memory but here they too must remain silent, along with the desperate loneliness he felt being away from Bruce in such a new, hectic environment that in the end prompted him to throw caution to the winds and sneak off to the rendezvous point. 

 

“You actually went looking for the guy who killed your parents yourself?” Garfield whispers, torn between horror and awe. 

 

“With Bruce,” Dick clarifies, “I didn’t exactly have my present aptitude with magic at age ten.”

 

“But you were _ten_ ,” Garfield gapes, and Dick shrugs uncomfortably. He’s used to being under the spotlight and in the centre ring, but awe has never sat well with him. He was just doing what he needed to. 

 

“So what happened?” Lagan asks. 

 

Bart looks a little uncomfortable at continuing to pry, and Dick feels a swell of warmth for Wally’s cousin. He shakes himself free of memories and grins, the bright warmth in his chest growing larger as he looks at Wally, Artemis and Conner. “What happened next was an intervention by the five nosy, interfering, bossy, persistent friends I’d managed to make.”

 

Wally hooks an arm around his neck, beaming proudly, and Artemis and Conner smirk at each other. “You better believe it!”

 

“Wally thought I was acting oddly so he stole my letter. When he told the others they decided to try and talk me out of it – and okay, on reflection, maybe the spot was too close to the Forbidden Forest for comfort.”

 

“You think?” Conner rolls his eyes at Dick. 

 

“Anyway, when that didn’t work, they decided to follow me that evening. Even rule-abiding, level-headed Kaldur agreed to it, and thank god for that.”

 

Wally nods emphatically and takes over the story. “We managed to track Dick to the meeting point – we knew he occasionally disappeared over a weekend but we never knew why – which was a challenge all in itself. We were just about to grab him and _make_ him come back with us when a guy sprints out of the Forest like hell itself is on his tail and lunges at Dick. Turns out he was a werewolf contracted by Two-Face and managed to get into the grounds by going through the Forbidden Forest. When we rushed at him he just laughed, threw a fire curse of some sort at us which Kaldur managed to block with a water shield – and I still don’t know how he did that, even with the lake right there – and knocked Dick unconscious before leaving the way he came. I guess he didn’t find five eleven-year-olds scary, even Conner.” 

 

“And then?” Garfield asks, peeking at them between his fingers. 

 

“Then,” Artemis carries on, “we high-tailed it back to the castle, screaming like banshees, woke up Professors Lance, Jordan and Hol, and burst into Headmistress Prince’s office at one in the morning. Wally nearly went from hyperventilating to hysterics, and Megan was sobbing so much that Professor Prince didn’t even think it was a joke.”

 

“Wha – I did not have hysterics,” Wally sputters, indignant, and his loving girlfriend grins wolfishly at him.

 

“Yes, you did.”

 

“Yeah, well, my best friend had just been kidnapped, excuse me for being concerned,” he huffs, folding his arms and sticking his nose in the air. Dick laughs and knocks him gently with his shoulder. 

 

Conner picks up the tale. “Once Prince had the story out of us and seen the letter, she called Doctor Chapel from the Hospital Wing and sent the portrait of one of the past Headmasters, Alan Wayne, to alert Auror Wayne. Headmistress Prince opened her fireplace for the Floo network, and he got there in, what, thirty seconds flat? He was not happy.”

 

“Who wasn’t?” Megan asks cheerfully, returning to the compartment and greeting Conner with a kiss. Kaldur is right behind her, and swiftly closes the door when he sees Dick’s expression. 

 

“The lunch trolley is on its way,” he merely says as he sits down. 

 

“So what are we talking about?” Megan asks again, tucking herself under her boyfriend’s arm. Lagan gets a dewy look in his eyes as Megan directs a kind smile to the three first years, and Garfield looks nauseous. 

 

“Professor Wayne when Dick was first kidnapped, that time just after Christmas,” Conner says quietly, and Megan’s hair immediately turns long and black, the fringe obscuring her eyes. 

 

“No, he wasn’t very happy,” she murmurs, and then shakes off the memory as she restores her hair. “Why are we talking about this? Professor Wayne doesn’t like us to discuss it.”

 

Wally indicates Bart, Garfield and Lagan with a jerk of his head. “We sort of brought it up and they haven’t heard the correct version of the story.”

 

Megan frowns at her brother and Garfield meeps in fear. “Sorry! We just wanted to hear the story, you can’t bring up someone getting kidnapped and not follow through!”

 

“It’s fine, Megan,” Dick reassures her, “it’s better they hear the correct version than one that includes a dragon, fifty Dark Wizards and a spoon.”

 

“I’ve actually heard one like that,” Artemis agrees, “but it had a broomstick and two combs in it. Geez, it’s really no wonder that Wayne started working at Hogwarts at the beginning of fifth year with all those stories running around. Add to that the times someone attempted to kidnap you but failed, and I’m just surprised he didn’t move into Hogwarts and keep an eye on your much earlier. I miss Professor Lance, though, even if she did come back briefly last year. She's so badass.”

 

“She’s breaking records and probably heads too in the International Confederation of Wizards,” Dick grins, “and enjoying it. She’ll probably be back next year though: Bruce won’t stay at Hogwarts after I graduate. He wants to get back into the field.”

 

The arrival of the lunch trolley interrupts them. Zatanna, who heard the story a few years ago when an eventful detention in the Potions dungeon brought her into their circle, heads off for a while to find Barbara and Karen, and probably Karen’s Hufflepuff boyfriend Mal. Once they’ve all bought themselves a portion or two – or four, as the case may be – they settle back and Conner continues at Bart’s prompting, deflating Dick’s feeble hope the arrival of food would distract them. 

 

“When Wayne got to the castle we told him what had happened and showed him the letter. Apparently he was used to Dick getting into trouble, so he’d put some sort of location spell on him and when he cast it again he found that Dick was still in the Forbidden Forest. He, Prince, Lance and Jordan raced off, leaving Chapel with us in the Headmistress’ office, and when Chapel took us back to the Hospital Wing, we ran for it.” 

 

“Through the corridors, down the stairs, out the front doors,” Kaldur says, not looking up from his pumpkin pastie. “We were just in time to see Professor – I should say, Auror Wayne – emerge from the Forbidden Forest carrying Dick and with Professors Prince, Lance, and Jordan by his side.”

 

No one really knew how the story had leaked – probably through the Floo Network Authority in the Ministry – but it had, and a seventh year with connections in the Department of Magical Transport had snuck up to the Hospital Wing with a camera. The subsequent evening a photo showing Doctor Chapel bustling around Dick’s bed with Bruce standing sentinel by his side had been splashed across the front page of the special edition of the _Prophet_. Needless to say, that particular student had had three detentions each in the Potions dungeon, the Forbidden Forest, and the Owlery, and, rumour had it, found it hard to get a job even now. 

 

“Crash,” breathes Bart. 

 

“Wow,” agrees Garfield. 

 

“Neptune’s beard,” adds Lagan. 

 

“It really wasn’t that cool,” Dick says, frowning a little, because don’t they get it? “It’s not a heroic tale. Don’t get me wrong, I think what those guys did was awesome and I might not be here today if they didn’t follow me and then raise the alarm and alert Bruce so quickly, but Two-Face wanted money and leverage, and he thought kidnapping an eleven-year-old was the best was to get it. Bruce is wealthy, powerful, and influential – he and I have both been targets because of that. The man who actually did the kidnapping didn’t hurt me much, but he could have. I know you don’t want to hear this, but you need to understand that some things aren’t as easy or as quick to heal as bruises and broken bones. There are witches and wizards out there who don’t hesitate to use Unforgivable Curses as a way to get what they want, and there are plenty of dark creatures fuelled by nothing but bloodlust.”

 

Garfield, Bart and Lagan wilt noticeably but at the last sentence and its implications they go pale with horror. Kaldur and Wally both go to put an arm around Dick and end up knocking elbows; Megan reaches across and takes both his hands in a warm, strong grip. Dick smiles at all of them, his best friends, his loyal defenders and supporters, and gently dislodges himself from their grip to lean forward and ruffle the boys’ hair. 

 

“I don’t mean to rain on your parade, boys,” he says gently, “but there are people like that in the world, who think nothing of using their powers at the expense of others. That’s why we’re at Hogwarts, to learn, so when you graduate you’ll be ready for a world that’s so much bigger than you could ever have imagined.”

 

He waits till they can meet his eye and then smiles warmly at them. “Attaboy.”

 

Maybe there is something to be said for bearing your soul in the service of others, he thinks as he sits back and tucks into his cauldron cake, but I don’t think I want to get into the habit. 

 

“Well, that was just rainbows and kittens,” Artemis rolls her eyes, “hey wordsmith, what’s ‘engulf, bury, archaic?’”

 

“How many letters?”

 

“Five.”

 

He flashes his best sharklike grin at her. “It’s ‘whelm’, Art!”

 

“You’re kidding me!” Artemis throws the crossword at him, “I can’t believe your favourite un-word is actually a word, you troll!”

 

The compartment bursts into laughter and the air finally lightens. They get to comparing summers, talking about books, arguing over Quidditch teams, and discussing the year ahead. The three first years eventually decide talk about careers and Ministry pathways is boring and wander off down the train to explore. As the light begins to fade into a glorious sunset, Zatanna, who re-joined them an hour earlier, nudges Dick with her elbow. 

 

“So, Grayson, what does Defence Against the Dark Arts look like this year?”

 

“I don’t know, Bruce doesn’t tell me his lesson plans. Paranoid, remember? Also, a teacher, and one who doesn’t believe in favouritism.”

 

Almost as one, the entire compartment breaks off whatever they’re saying and just stares at him. Dick throws up his hands. “What? He doesn’t! I don’t get inside info on tests and stuff, have you met Headmistress Prince? She’d have our heads for that.”

 

“True,” concedes Zatanna, “but I’m worried about my Defence Against the Dark Arts mark. Ancient Runes, Divination, Potions, Charms, Transfiguration – all fine, but I always freeze up when we get into practical stuff in Defence. I like completely preparing things beforehand, or knowing what I’m getting into...”

 

“Neither of which is always possible in DADA,” Megan fills in, and Zatanna nods.

 

“From what Clark said, Charms this year is going to be interesting,” Conner adds, frowning. “We’re going to be working on spells that need to be cast with precise formation.”

 

“I’m hoping acing Potions will boost my Muggle Studies grades,” Wally admits, finishing the last of his chewing gum and Vanishing it. 

 

“If you don’t like the subject, why are you still doing it?” demands Artemis. 

 

“Better than Divination – that’s not even real magic.”

 

Dick sits back and lets the familiar argument that always follows that statement flow over him. He’s not really worried about any of his subjects; he’s going to be an Auror when he graduates and, if a little smug vanity is permitted, he’s ahead of those requirements anyway. He needs at least five Outstandings in N.E.W.Ts, but he wants straight Os, and he thinks he can get them. Besides, anything is better than last year – Bruce was oddly distant and curt during the first term, which put Dick on edge, which worried Wally, which concerned Artemis; there was that whole fiasco with Tula and Garth over the Easter break; and though it’s finally been resolved in their favour, Conner’s parents faced a long and nasty legal battle with LexCorp over some of their farmland and its potential for industrial development which pulled Clark, Lois, Bruce, Diana, and, due to her devotion to Conner, Megan’s Auror uncle John Jones into the fray.

 

He looks down at his packet of fudge flies, appetite suddenly lost. Merlin, he hopes this year turns out better than the last. Dick has so much riding on it.


	2. Chapter 2

They pull into Hogsmeade station an hour later, and reassure Lagan, Bart and Garfield, who are suddenly much more nervous than they want to admit, that Sorting isn’t that terrifying. The first years follow Mr Stewart to the lake, and the rest of the school makes their way to the carriages. Dick and Artemis draw a lot of strange looks from lower year students as they pat the Thestrals; to many others it seems as though they’re just flapping their hands around in mid-air.

 

In the Entrance Hall they split up, and on the way to the Ravenclaw Table with Wally, Zatanna, Barbara and Karen, Dick glances up to the High Table to meet Bruce’s eye. The tense knot that’s been in his chest since the recital on the train loosens immediately. The professor and currently part-time Auror looks as imposing as usual in his black robes, but Bruce’s gaze softens when he sees Dick and he lifts his goblet in subtle greeting. God, he saw Bruce just this morning and there’s still a delicious fizz in his veins as he grins at his guardian before settling at his House table. 

 

Soon enough the whole school is seated and waiting, and Professor Hol leads the first years in. The new students stop before the Sorting Hat and stare at it along with the rest of the Great Hall, and a moment later its wide mouth opens for its yearly song. The applause at the Hat’s conclusion has barely died away when Hol unfurls the scroll and calls out,

 

“Allen, Bartholomew!”

 

Dick exchanges a grin with Wally: Bart’s full name doesn’t suit his fidgety energy, and Dick can relate. The red-head hurries forward and plops himself on the three-legged stool. The Hat spends barely ten seconds on his head before yelling, 

 

“GRYFFINDOR!” 

 

The table at the far right bursts into applause and Dick can see Conner and Artemis patting Bart’s back as he joins them at the table. The line of first years steadily dwindles. Drake, Timothy becomes the first Ravenclaw and eventually Logan, Garfield is called up to the Hat. Thirty seconds later, his prediction comes true: the Hat sends him scampering off to Hufflepuff as Longshadow, Tye takes his place on the stool. Reyes, Jaime is one of the longer Sortings but he isn’t quite a Hatstall, and Slytherin cheers loudly once the Hat’s decided that’s where he’s going to go. Finally, after Sandsmark, Cassandra – Dick wonders if he should tell Wally that’s Headmistress Prince’s niece before deciding against it – also joins Gryffindor, Seamore, Lagan is called up. He takes a little longer, but soon the Hat decides on Gryffindor and he hurries over to join Bart. After Stone, Victor is made a Ravenclaw and Yates, Antony hurries over to Slytherin, Professor Hol rolls up the list and removes the Sorting Hat. 

 

“Finally,” Wally groans, lunging for his cutlery as Headmistress Prince stands imperiously. 

 

“Good evening, everyone, and welcome back to another year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry! Please enjoy our Start-of-Year Feast, and then give me your attention for several announcements before retiring to your dormitories for the beginning of term.” Headmistress Prince lifts her hands regally and the plates fill with food as the House-Elves below them begin the feast. Once Wally is no longer likely to take Dick’s hands off in his excitement to get food to the plate, Dick helps himself and digs in.

 

Conversation centres mainly on the holidays, so Dick listens and eats instead of talks as Barbara and Karen fill them in on their summers. The food is as delicious as always; the atmosphere is so much one of general satisfaction that when Headmistress Prince stands at the end of the feast, Dick, Wally and the others are guilty of gazing glassily at the High Table and letting the speech wash over them. It’s not like they haven’t heard it multiple times before – no magic in the corridors, the Forbidden Forest is, well, forbidden, don’t antagonise the resident poltergeist Klarion, and Quidditch tryouts take place in the third week back – so they’re free to look attentive and feel warmly sleepy. Professor Prince makes the Head Boy and Girl stand up so the first years know who they are if they need them, reiterates the House Championship rules, and finally dismisses the school with the command they have a successful academic year. 

 

There’s no point in trying to see Bruce tonight – he’ll have his own colleagues dropping by his chambers asking about summer and classes – so Dick heads up to Ravenclaw Tower with the others, answers the first riddle of the year, and climbs the stairs to their dormitory. Wally heads to his bed and starts digging for something in his trunk, pyjama pants on and shirt draped on his bed; Dick rolls his eyes at the chaos as he slips off his robes and hangs them in his closet. 

 

“Yo, Dick, Wally! Good to see you guys.” Julius, Maxwell and Gregorian, the other Ravenclaw seventh years, are unpacking their own gear on the other side of the room. 

 

“Hi, guys, how were your holidays? Gregorian, did your sister get that job you were telling us about?” They exchange general news and predictions for the year to come as they get ready for bed, unpacking and settling back into their dorm of seven years for their last year. Julius’ bedside is adorned with scribbled-on diagrams of magical creatures, though Dick can think of few things less appealing than falling asleep with a Lethifold fact sheet pinned by your head, Maxwell has already tacked up his numerous posters for the Caerphilly Catapults, and every inch of Gregorian’s bedside table is soon covered by photos of his huge extended family, all waving and smiling at the camera on various holidays. Soon enough, though, thanks to their full stomachs and waiting piles of textbooks, the Ravenclaw dorm is lit only by the glowing embers in the corner hearth, and Dick curls up beneath his covers as he sets his internal alarm for the next morning.

 

* * *

 

The only problem, Dick thinks groggily as he wakes, with term starting on the first of September every year is the fact that the day is never fixed. This year the train departed on a Wednesday; with the weekend so close no one will be in the mood to concentrate, nor will they have time to get to grips with the new material before the weekend breaks up their study. Dick has the feeling the seventh years will be plunged head first into the deep end. Dressing quietly, he packs his parchment, quills, new potions kit and ink into his bag, casts a muffling charm on his shoes, and pads silently from the dorm.

 

The corridors are deserted too, and Dick reaches the turret housing the private chambers of some of the staff on the other side of the castle without running into anyone, even Klarion. He taps his wand three times on the door handle of Bruce’s room, says the new password and produces the key from a hidden inner pocket in his bag. Two turns later and the door swings open at his touch. 

 

“Have I told you this month you’re paranoid?” Dick asks, closing and locking the door behind him and curling up in his favourite plush armchair by the ashes of the fire. 

 

“Not this month, no,” Bruce replies from where he’s shaving in the adjacent bathroom, “but it is only the second of September. Tea’s on the table behind you. What is it?”

 

Dick gets up to pour himself a cup of Alfred’s special mix. The butler makes sure to replenish it every so often from home, and the House-Elves leave a pot of boiling water in Bruce’s room every morning. “Nothing. Can’t I stop by for a cup of tea without you worrying?”

 

The sound of water splashing in the basin precedes Bruce’s reply, and when it comes Dick knows he’s smiling. “Paranoia and worry are requisites when one takes in an impetuous little acrobat who thinks hanging from the chandelier is a good idea.”

 

“Hey,” Dick laughs, “I haven’t broken anything, fallen from anything, set anything on fire, or caused a stampede in at least two years!”

 

“I applaud your restraint,” is the dry reply, and Dick laughs again as he sits with a cup of steaming, fragrant tea cupped in his hands. A moment later Bruce appears, dressed in his billowing black robes with a crisp emerald tie shimmering at his throat, and pours himself a cup of tea before sitting down opposite Dick. He mixes Muggle styles with wizard robes better than anyone Dick has met: some of the Ministry wizards have such eclectic sartorial tastes it’s eye-watering. 

 

They sip at their tea in companionable silence, Bruce gazing at the orange-hearted embers and Dick stealing reassuring glances at Bruce’s pensive face every so often. He should really know better than to expect Bruce wouldn’t notice. 

 

“What is it?”

 

“What’s what?” Dick asks, meeting Bruce’s eyes as the man looks over. He gets a raised eyebrow for his prevarication, holds that blue gaze for another moment, and then sighs in defeat. “I met Wally’s cousin Bart, Megan’s brother Garfield and Kaldur’s neighbour Lagan on the train yesterday; when Artemis made some reference to our youthful adventures they wanted to know the whole story of my first kidnapping.”

 

How crazy is his life that he has to add a quantifier to that sentence? 

 

Bruce frowns, face darkening, and Dick hastens to calm the tempest. “They would have heard some garbled version of it, it’s still unusual and thrilling enough to retell even though most of the students who know about it have graduated. I thought it would be best to give them the bare bones of the more accurate version. It was just...” He trails off and shrugs. “Well, you know.”

 

Bruce does know, and he puts his teacup down to rest his forearms on his thighs so he can lean forward and scrutinise Dick’s face.

 

“Course I’m alright,” he says, grinning at Bruce. 

 

Bruce narrows his eyes further, assessing his sincerity, and then leans back, apparently satisfied. “Are you looking forward to this year?”

 

A quick thrill darts through Dick’s veins. He can’t wait for this year to be over, though it’s just begun – he’s counting down to graduation when he’ll no longer be a student and, most importantly, Bruce will no longer his teacher. His seventeenth birthday will take care of Bruce’s legal guardianship. Telling Bruce this, though, will reveal too many of his cards when Dick is not only unsure of his hand but isn’t willing to play without the deck being stacked in his favour. 

 

“Very much,” he answers instead, smiling. “I’m just ready to finish, I think. Seven years – I’m looking forward to graduating and finally getting into the Auror preliminaries...legally, anyway,” he smirks. Bruce’s mouth predictably thins, so Dick gently kicks out at Bruce’s shin. “Stop with the worried, reluctant look, old man. You know I’m going into the Auror department with or without your blessing; Jim Gordon practically guaranteed me an early admission as long as my N.E.W.Ts meet the standard.”

 

Bruce sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “I know, I know, but as you enjoy pointing out, I worry.”

 

Dick smiles. “Well, prepare me.”

 

Oh, _wrong_ choice of words. Heat flares through him and his heart stutters; it takes all his willpower not to let his thoughts show on his face or on his body. “You know, N.E.W.Ts and all that. We’ll still have our morning sparring in the Room of Requirement, right?”

 

“Yes, we’ll start next week. As for schoolwork, we should get to breakfast so you can find your timetable.”

 

Dick nods and stands. “How many DADA lessons?”

 

“Three,” Bruce replies, handing him his bag and chivvying Dick out of the door so he can lock and ward it behind him. 

 

“Asterous,” Dick says, grinning. “At least I know what to expect from your classes; I bet Potions and Transfiguration in particular are going to drop us in the deep end.”

 

“Flatterer,” Bruce replies dryly, quirking an eyebrow at Dick.

 

“Have a good day,” Dick grins as they reach the Great Hall and Bruce heads for the High Table. There are very few students up at this hour, most of whom are first years too jittery to risk not getting their timetable and missing their first class. Head of Ravenclaw Professor Palmer is halfway down the table when Dick sits down, consoling and reassuring the first years, and makes his way over to him a few minutes later. Dick gulps down his last bite of toast and grins eagerly up at the professor. 

 

“Morning, sir.”

 

“Hello, Mr Grayson, how was your summer? I didn’t hear about any international incidents, so I hope it was peaceful?”

 

Dick snickers. “It was great, thanks. The Carpathians were breathtaking and the food was delicious. What does this year look like?”

 

Palmer taps a piece of paper with his wand and Dick’s timetable draws itself out in blocks of colour in the surface. “You’ll be very busy, but I can see some good N.E.W.Ts in your future if you keep up your Transfiguration marks – I was very happy with them last year. Charms, Potions, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Herbology, Care of Magical Creatures, Astronomy, Study of Ancient Runes and Arithmancy are all here and receiving your usual high scores, but are you sure you want to keep studying Alchemy? It’s very complex in seventh year and though Headmistress Prince has agreed to continue teaching your small class she’s concerned about your workload. Your fellows are only taking seven, sometimes eight subjects, and you’ll try for the Quidditch Team against as well, won’t you?”

 

“Yes sir, but I’ll be fine! I’m used to a big workload and I really can’t afford to drop any of my subjects. I’d take more if I could persuade Professor Wayne to give me a Time-Turner.” 

 

Professor Palmer looks piercingly at him, and then smiles and hands over his timetable. “The Auror Office is going to be thrilled to have you. Oh, and you didn’t hear it from me, but I’m glad you’ll be trying out for Quidditch again – frankly, I want to see Gryffindor flattened. Professor Hol has been unbearable.”

 

Dick bursts out laughing and tucks his timetable away as Palmer winks at him and continues down the table. Bruce is watching him from the High Table, and Dick gives him the thumbs up as he reaches for another croissant. Wally drops into the seat beside him as Dick finishes the last mouthful of fluffy scrambled eggs and drops another spoonful on Dick’s plate before serving himself. 

 

“Thanks. Palmer was just by with my timetable, it looks alright. I’ll only get Tuesday afternoons off and Prince has decided to test my dedication by putting two hours of Alchemy on Friday afternoon but other than that we’ll see how it goes.”

 

“Mmmhmm,” Wally manages through his mouthful of sausage, waffle and egg, “wns p’shns?”

 

“Potions is on twice a week for two hours, Tuesday and Friday,” Dick replies, fluent after years of practice. “Care of Magical Creatures is still with the Hufflepuffs, and Herbology with the Slytherins.”

 

Wally manages three more waffles, a kipper and two boiled eggs before Professor Palmer reaches them again, by which time Zatanna, Barbara, Karen and Gregorian are down at the table too. Maxwell runs perpetually late, and Julius is so absent-minded it’s a wonder he’s so good at Care of Magical Creatures; they manage to get there just in time to catch Palmer with their timetables, and groan in dismay at the sight of Transfiguration first up on Thursday mornings. 

 

“At least it’s not on Monday morning,” Karen says consolingly after Palmer whacks them over the heads with the timetables in his arms. 

 

“Yeah, but Defence Against the Dark Arts is,” moans Maxwell, looking like he wants to dive into his pumpkin juice and never reappear, “Wayne is such a slave driver.”

 

“And who the hell decided that Astronomy at midnight after a day full of History of Magic and Potions was a good idea?” Gregorian practically whines, staring at his timetable.

 

“This year is going to interesting,” Barbara agrees, folding her newspaper as nine o’clock approaches and the others start to gather their bags. 

 

‘Interesting’ turns out to be an understatement. An hour and a half later the seventh years stagger out of Transfiguration ashen-faced despite Professor Palmer’s encouragement. 

 

“Elemental transfusions,” whimpers Artemis, forehead resting on Wally’s shoulder and stumbling after him as they make their way to the Great Hall for break. 

 

“Salt into sugar on our first lesson, and oh yeah, five inches of parchment on microscopic chemical metamorphosis,” Karen snarls, ignoring Mal’s offer to hold her bag and stalking off down the corridor. If even the transfiguration class prodigy and Palmer’s tacitly acknowledged protégée has neared her wit’s end, Dick has a sinking feeling this year got a whole lot harder than he and his arrogance were expecting.

 

After the half hour break, where they commiserate on their general abject misfortune in life, the Gryffindors head off to Charms, Conner still looking like a particularly belligerent storm cloud, and the Ravenclaws make their way to Herbology and Greenhouse Six with no small amount trepidation. Luckily, no one is sent to the Hospital Wing from Venomous Tentacula bites but it’s a close-run thing and Dick swears the enchanted garden gnomes who watch over the newly planted beds were taking bets on who would get bitten first. 

 

Lunch is a blessed relief, and they all pile over to the Hufflepuff table where Megan is face down in her Transfiguration book and looking unlikely to ever rise again. 

 

“Tell me about it,” Mal groans, dropping his bag beside her and slumping into his seat. 

 

“I think it is a tactic to scare and overawe us,” Kaldur says pragmatically, “perhaps the teachers think that if they instil the fear of N.E.W.Ts early we will be more prepared come June.”

 

“Well, I’m definitely overawed,” Wally huffs as he grabs the nearest bowl of chicken salad and upends it over his plate, “so I wish they’d lay off!”

 

“They probably will next week,” Zatanna says hopefully, “they did this to us in fifth year too – came on really strong with all that talk of O.W.Ls and then let us get on with it. They can’t keep going at this pace, otherwise no one will actually survive till June!”

 

Artemis stares at her fork like she’s considering ending it all now. 

 

Arithmancy is one of Dick’s favourite subjects, so when he, Karen and Barbara leave the table it’s not with the look of gloom Wally reserves for Muggle Studies. Professor Kord takes one look at their apprehensive faces and bursts out laughing before handing them their number charts and letting them get on with it. It’s the most relaxed Dick has felt all day, which is saying something as he spends an hour calculating the use of Pi to eight digits in the lunar cycle, but he did a lot of extra study on the holidays when Bruce insisted on taking Muggle transport through Ukraine in case the Floo network was being watched. Plus, studying Arithmancy until his eyes couldn’t stay open was a surprisingly good way of keeping away the nightmares that reared their heads as they passed through Romania. 

 

The class chooses to run into afternoon break in order to lessen the amount of homework they’ll have tonight, and Kord eventually shoos them away in time for Dick and Barbara to hurry down to Potions. Karen had achieved the requisite O.W.L but chose not to continue with Potions, and farewells them with all the smugness of someone who has that afternoon off and intends to monopolise the squishy armchairs in front of the fire in the Common Room. 

 

When they reach the seventh year Potions dungeon it’s to find most of the class already assembled. Wally is murmuring odes to Artemis’ hair as she tries not to look too pleased, and Megan is chatting with the other Hufflepuffs and the few Slytherins as they wait for Professor Roquette. Conner, while scraping an Acceptable in their O.W.Ls, has sworn off Potions for the rest of his school career after one very memorable occasion a few years ago involving a few too many laurel leaves, a hearty helping of salamander eggs, and an exploding cauldron, and Kaldur too in his chosen path of marine biology doesn’t take the class, studying mer-language through correspondence instead. 

 

“How was Muggle Studies?” Dick asks, leaning against the cool stone next to Wally, who loops an around Artemis’ waist and turns to fix an intense look on his best friend. 

 

“Dude, two words: Cellular. Telephones. It’s crazy, the things Muggles have come up with! These telephones, right, are like fireplaces in that Muggles can talk to each other across huge distances but they’re basically like little boxes that fit into their hands. Professor Strange strongly hinted that radio waves, which is kinda how the words travel from telephone to telephone, will be on the exam.”

 

Dick doesn’t hold back the laugh at Wally’s incredulous face. His family had a fair amount of Muggle gear like toasters and a radio in a circus partially made up of Muggles, and Bruce had taught him the basics, including using phones, in case they were separated when Dick was younger and could neither Apparate nor get to a Floo network. 

 

“Their science stuff is awesome, though,” Wally sighs, “Uncle Barry says that if I get at least an E in Muggle Studies he’ll buy me a centrifuge.” 

 

Dick tunes out the long explanation on centrifuges, but Professor Roquette arrives before Wally can really hit his stride. Artemis and he exchange little smirks as Wally bounds forward, Potions prodigy desperate to reacquaint himself with his state-of-the-art Ministry grade silver composite cauldron. He’s cooing to it as they reach their usual bench.

 

“Afternoon, class,” Roquette says, “well, I think you what’s coming up next June: we’ll get straight into it. Divide into pairs and brew the standard Sleeping Solution in one cauldron – _without_ instructions, I want to see what your memory is like. When you’ve brewed the base, divide it in two and one person will add the ingredients to make it a Comatose Draught, a level two soporific, while other adds what’s necessary to their half to create a cure that induces wakefulness without bringing on insomnia. You will each take a sip of the Comatose Draught and then each take the cure. You have two hours – go.”

 

The soft groans that have been echoing around the dungeon reach a peak and Roquette tuts disapprovingly at them. Wally, on the other hand, zips instantly to the storage cupboard, reciting what he needs at top speed. 

 

“Do you want him, or shall I take him?” Dick asks Artemis, and she sidles over to Megan in answer. 

 

Most of the class isn’t quite finished by the time the testing comes around – even Wally and Dick scramble to add the last dash of chamomile – but Roquette shows no mercy. The effects of an incomplete Comatose Draught shouldn’t be funny, but as Slytherin pair David and Rhiannon start hiccupping helplessly Dick has to bite his tongue and Wally tries to cover his snigger with a very unconvincing cough. 

 

Professor Roquette naturally calls on them next. 

 

Still mindful of what happened the first time they taste-tested potions without preparing, Dick and Wally sit down and get comfortable before Wally takes the first sip of their Comatose mix. He immediately slumps back, so still it looks like he’s died. His chest moves in minuscule increments, the lie to the overall picture, but it’s only noticeable if you look really closely. Roquette checks his pupils, nods approvingly, and waits for Dick to pour a few drops of the cure between Wally’s parted lips. He comes round a second later, rubbing his eyes. 

 

“Wow, that was intense!”

 

“Bottoms up,” Dick salutes him with his own spoonful, and –

 

– comes round a few seconds later with the taste of the cure on his tongue. 

 

“Holy hibernation,” he says, sitting upright, “you weren’t kidding, Walls. Knocks you right out.”

 

“Five points each to Ravenclaw,” Roquette says approvingly, and they share a fist bump for the first class they finally ace. 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First Defence Against the Dark Arts class of the year, and something extra exciting in Potions.

The feeling of success doesn’t stay very long the next morning. As soon as they see the diagrams on the chalkboard Dick knows Conner is right about Charms this year: the precision needed in their casting movement for the Incandescent Incantation can just about be measured in _fractions_ and by the end of the class no one has been able to coax a glow from all of the foot-high spiral of glass on their desks in front of them. Professor Jordan sends them out with a ten-inch roll of parchment due Tuesday on the necessity of meticulous precision in glasswork and illumination charms. 

 

“You know last night how I said this year maybe wouldn’t be so bad?” Wally says to Dick, who nods. “Well, I changed my mind. We’re all going to get ulcers from the stress and die.” 

 

Dick bursts into laughter and hooks his arm around Wally’s neck. “Don’t ever change, Wall-man. I’m just glad we’ve got DADA next.”

 

“You may be glad, but I most certainly am not,” Zatanna says tartly, “in fact, I’m so not-glad I think I’m dalg.”

 

Dick tamps down the flare of ire her comment provokes. If she’s using the backwards language she made up as a kid who didn’t fit in Zatanna really is worried. Artemis senses it too and pulls Zatanna down beside her at the Gryffindor table. “It’ll be fine. Wayne’s tough but he’s not heartless. Look who he took in.”

 

“But who could resist this face?” Dick asks teasingly, framing his face and batting his eyelashes at them. Truth be told, after the frustration of not getting the movements right in Charms, a subject which requires the delicacy, innovation and grace Dick’s not shy about admitting he possesses, he’s beyond eager to get to Defence Against the Dark Arts. That is something he can do, and do excellently – he’s even done it in his sleep. And if looking forward to DADA means looking forward to having Bruce there with his silent support, well, that’s just a coincidence. 

 

They’re waiting outside the classroom by the time the bell rings, and the door swings open. Bruce – Professor Wayne – is at the blackboard, flanked on either side by a variety of devices that protect against, predict or track Dark Magic, and when the last student sits down he turns, robes somehow managing to flare dramatically with that little movement and lending him an air that’s as intimidating and awe-inspiring as ever. 

 

“This is your last year at Hogwarts, and as you’ve decided to stay in Defence Against the Dark Arts I take it that means you are dedicated to this subject. I only accept students who will push themselves to do their absolute best in this class, and believe me, I will tell you if you’re not doing that. If you are not dedicated to the work and effort this course requires, get out now.”

 

No one moves – no one even really seems to breathe. Professor Wayne tends to have that effect. 

 

“Good.” The professor stands beside his desk, hands linked at the small of his back. “This term will be spent on recognising and defending against curses and offensive Dark Magic. Next term will contain new material on Dark Creatures, and the third term will involve intense revision and preparation for June. If you are going on to any sort of Law Enforcement position in the Ministry, or are hoping to enter into the Auror Office or the Department of Mysteries, you will need Outstandings in your N.E.W.Ts. I will help you get those, if you do your part and give me 110%.” Wayne lets his eyes meet the gaze of every one of the students, and Dick can’t help but grin mischievously at him when Bruce’s eyes meet his: he’s never been scared of Bruce, even at his most intimidating. Overwhelmed, overawed, frustrated, furious, yes, but never scared. 

 

Professor Wayne lets the silence stretch for another second, two, three, before barking instructions. “Stand. Put your bags to the left side.”

 

Instantly the scrape of chairs echoes through the classroom as they move. Dick can feel anticipation and excitement start to course through him, and he pulls his wand out of his pocket in preparation. Once they’re milling about to the left, Professor Wayne moves their desks to the right with one sweep of his wand and beckons them back into the middle of the room.

 

“This afternoon is not about note taking or revision. You should have done that over the summer, and if you are faced with a combat situation out there you will not have time to go over your books. Today you will be randomly selected from the roll and I am going to cast one of three nonverbal curses at you –” Professor Wayne ignores the swell of shocked whispers as he writes the three curses on the board “– the Full Body-Bind, the Blindness Curse, or the Vertigo Jinx. They each have a very specific casting motion and I want you to recognise it and respond immediately with the appropriate nonverbal counter-curse. If you succeed in blocking it, you will receive five points. If you use the verbal spell or use a basic but effective Shield spell you will receive three. If you get hit, none of the curses have lasting effects and I will release you immediately. Do not panic if you are hit, just stay still.”

 

Most of the students are looking at each other with varying levels of terror on their faces, but Dick is bouncing on his toes, adrenaline flooding his system.

 

“What is the counter for the Full Body-Bind?” Bruce asks, looking around.

 

Artemis raises her hand. “ _Libero Corpus_.”

 

“Good. The Blindness Curse?”

 

A Hufflepuff next to Megan answers, “ _Oculorum_.”

 

“Correct. And the Vertigo Jinx?”

 

Kaldur and Gregorian raise their hands; Professor Wayne nods to the latter. 

 

“ _Statera_?”

 

“Was that a question or the answer?”

 

Gregorian licks his lips, “Uh, the answer, sir.”

 

“Yes. Now, the Full Body-Bind will look like this.” Standing in the centre of the room and facing them, Wayne flicks his wand sharply up and then down like he’s about to conduct an orchestra. “Recite the counter-curse.”

 

“ _Libero corpus_ ,” they chant. 

 

“The Blindness Curse looks like this,” and the professor sweeps his wand left and then back to the centre like he’s playing a backhand in tennis, and gets them to recite that counter block, and finally demonstrates the circular motion with the last flick forward of the Vertigo Jinx and waits for them to respond with the counter-curse. He drills them several times, and then jabs his wand at the roll until the names start floating about on the page. 

 

“Miss Triskel,” he says, offering the roll to Amelia at the front of the room. She gulps and closes her eyes before dropping the tip of her wand down on the bottom left corner. Professor Wayne looks at the trapped name and calls out,

 

“Mr Grayson, front and centre.”

 

A sharp grin stretches across Dick’s face and as he steps forward the whole class scuttles back against the wall, leaving him facing Bruce in the middle of the classroom. He stands loose-limbed and ready, wand steady by his side. This is too easy. Not only does he know most of the seventh year curses and their movements, but he can read Bruce better than he can read anyone, knows Bruce better than anyone else except Alfred. He’s been sparring and duelling with Bruce since he was ten, he knows every tic and movement Bruce can make – and Auror Wayne can cast deadly curses without a twitch of muscle to betray him but as a professor he’s playing up the gestures for the students’ sake. Dick stands with back straight and right shoulder leading, half-facing Bruce, and weight balanced on both legs, ready on the balls of his feet. 

 

Professor Wayne’s eyes gleam – he knows almost to the letter the thoughts running through Dick’s head but he can’t make it more of a challenge by disguising his motions without risking complaints from the rest of the class. He raises his wand to a casting position at the centre of his chest and pauses for a moment to show the rest of the class this is where the test begins – then flicks his wand in the circular motion of the Vertigo Jinx. As soon as Bruce begins the motion Dick recognises it and slashes his own wand up, counter-curse flying through his mind. Not a word passes his lips as the purple light streaking from Bruce’s wand meets and splits around his cobalt blue spell, diffusing harmlessly a few feet behind him. Dick straights up and drops his arm, wide grin on his face, and the class bursts into applause, but it’s Bruce’s reaction he’s waiting for. 

 

“Well done, Mr Grayson,” Professor Wayne says quietly, smile at the corner of his mouth, “five points to Ravenclaw.” 

 

Dick saunters back to his spot against the wall, high-fiving Wally as he passes. 

 

Euterpe Bronx has her name chosen next, and she goes pale. “Merlin,” she whispers shakily, and her Slytherin friends gently jostle her forward to stand in front of Professor Wayne. A second later, they all wince as the Body-Bind hits her directly and she topples back to land on the cushions conjured earlier for that precise purpose. 

 

“Nerves are understandable, but hesitation will get you killed,” Professor Wayne pronounces, cheerful as ever as he releases Euterpe. Dick sees a flash of foil as the professor passes something to Euterpe and just _melts_ , heart swelling and going gooey in his chest: that’s Restorative Chocolate, and while it tastes partly like straight cocoa and partly like medicinal sugar it’s the best thing for shock. The people who believe his intimidating exterior means Bruce is cold and heartless don’t know him at all. 

 

Everyone who is hit with a curse gets a chocolate, and Dick’s a little horrified to see three, four, five students after him either hesitate, start late and get halfway through a counter charm, or just freeze altogether. Kaldur, stepping forward after Imogen Helix staggers to sit against the wall with her head between her knees, is the second person to successfully counter a curse, and Artemis is the fourth, blocking a Body-Bind. Wally too is successful but completely forgets about being nonverbal, and gets three points for his yelled, “ _Libero corpus_!” and a caution from Professor Wayne that while fieldwork would let him get away with it, a N.E.W.Ts examiner won’t.

 

After Wally, a few more people including Megan and Mal go for the verbal option or the shield charm, figuring any block is better than a curse. Conner successfully and nonverbally deflects his curse, as do Karen and Barbara, but when Zatanna steps up they can all see how nervous she is. Dick and Wally glance at one another, and a second later wince as Zatanna cries out in fear as her sight goes black. 

 

“Stay still, Miss Zatara,” Professor Wayne barks, striding forward, “you’ll be able to see in two seconds.” 

 

Zatanna huddles between Artemis and Raquel, shaken, as the few remaining students step forward in their turn. The bell rings just after Gregorian’s shield charm fractures and lets the Blindness Curse hit the wall behind him, but the class doesn’t move, well-trained by the years they’ve had with Bruce as their teacher. 

 

“Read the first chapter of the textbook. I want half a foot of parchment for each of the four questions at the end of chapter on my desk by the end of Monday’s class,” Bruce says, and lets them go. By a happy accident – complete coincidence, really – Dick is the last one out of the door, and he looks back just before he leaves. 

 

“Good work, Dick,” Bruce says quietly, glancing over from where he’s stacking his books, “well done.”

 

He practically floats over the threshold and beams all the way down to lunch. There’s even a plate of his favourite little rice-stuffed peppers near him at the Ravenclaw table, and when he, Kaldur, Julius, Zatanna, Megan and Barbara head up to Ancient Runes it’s to find Professor Nelson has taken pity on the seventh years and prepared a revision lesson for them rather than pitchforking them straight into new coursework. 

 

“Maybe this year won’t be so bad after all,” he grins, stretching and sighing as they file out of the classroom an hour and a half later. 

 

“Don’t jinx it,” Megan teases, elbowing him. “See you at dinner! Good luck with Alchemy.”

 

“You think _I_ need luck? Oh ye of little faith,” he banters back, resting the back of his hand on his brow. 

 

“Go on, then, smart ass,” Barbara sighs, as they split at the top of the fourth floor staircase. Kaldur and Dick head up to the eighth floor and their small classroom while the others head down for their free period and early start to the weekend, slackers.

 

Professor Prince sweeps in, resplendent in red, blue and gold robes, and before she lets them anywhere near the store cupboard grills them thoroughly on the different meanings, interpretations and applications of the Green Man, Red Lion, sun, moon and eclipse among the many symbols they studied last year. Friday evening sees Dick face-plant into his bed, determined never to move again.

 

The year is definitely everything they were promised and warned about. Kaldur’s right about their coursework stabilising over the next few weeks: it’s hectic, but it does seem like the professors make sure to impress upon them the importance of next June and then let them get on with learning what they’re teaching. Dick’s sparring sessions with Bruce begin next Monday after a weekend that’s mostly spent watching enviously as the lower years explore the castle while the seventh years plough through their work and try to read ahead. The Room of Requirement is as obliging as ever, and when the words start blurring together deep among the library stacks and the candle starts guttering and the whispering of the knowledge within the books gets loud as the night ticks on, Dick can look forward to working out all the cramps the next morning with one of Bruce’s rigorous training exercises. 

 

Quidditch try-outs are held in the third week back and training starts in the fourth; Ravenclaw Captain Alexa Jun is a talented Chaser in her sixth year and holds the try-outs with her perpetually unimpressed expression as they look for another Beater, Chaser and Keeper. One of Bruce’s goodwill gestures to Professor Prince in regards to taking Dick surreptitiously out of school to hunt for Zucco in his first year was to replace all the old school brooms with the best amateur-level Wayne Enterprises broom available at the time, the Stardust Enterprise 500. He updates them every year, possibly to keep on Diana’s good side, and even wanted to buy the Ravenclaw team all Stardust 700s when Dick first joined the team in his third year. There, however, Dick put his foot down: he got in on pure talent and wanted to make sure people knew that. He’s heard enough whispers in his time at Hogwarts about Bruce buying him his future.

 

Still, that doesn’t mean Dick doesn’t wince slightly at the windswept sight of one or two students’ personal brooms, and then feel a twinge of guilt at his own snobbishness when he mounts his professional standard Solarflare Enterprise 3000: it’s one of the fastest, most agile brooms available. Bruce gave it to him for his fifteenth birthday, and he hasn’t lost a match on it yet – hasn’t lost more than two matches in his school Quidditch career, as a matter of fact. He resumes his position as Seeker, and the season starts in the middle of October with Gryffindor against Slytherin.

 

What with Quidditch – Ravenclaw win their first game against Hufflepuff a fortnight after the Gryffindor/Slytherin game – and coursework, homework and study, sparring and exercising, Dick’s a little startled to come down to breakfast one morning to see the Great Hall decked out with carved pumpkins, live bats, artistically melted candles and swathes of black fabric. 

 

“Halloween already?” Dick asks, pulling a container of cereal towards him. 

 

“What do you mean, already?” Wally scoffs, piling bacon onto his plate. “I’ve been looking forward to this feast since the start of term! Plus it’s our first visit to Hogsmeade this weekend. You coming?”

 

“Sure,” Dick says, “I should have my Transfiguration essay finished by then.”

 

Wally winces.  

 

“Yeah, babe, you should probably start that instead of whining about how your stash of Bertie Botts Beans is getting low,” Artemis teases. 

 

Kaldur drops into a seat next to Dick and bids him good morning.

 

“Hi. You oversleep?”

 

“No,” he sighs, helping himself to baked eggplant and toast, “three third-years needed my help with a particularly belligerent classmate. I think I have sorted it out, but time will tell. I sometimes wonder if having such a close school environment does more harm than good.”

 

“I think you’re right,” Dick replies. “The whole furore over my – you know, the subject of our discussion on the train – is still rattling around, cropping up occasionally. In such close quarters, gossip is both currency and power.”

 

“And power corrupts,” Kaldur finishes. “Indeed, I will not pretend I haven’t thought along those lines.”

 

“We’ll just have to make it through our last year pure as the driven snow,” Dick grins, pouring them both more tea. It isn’t until later that Dick wonders if Kaldur was  trying even then to give as much advice as he thought he could.

 

The motif of floating pumpkins grinning garishly, black bats, and artistically draped spider webs on the torch sconces repeats itself throughout the various corridors of the castle. The passage to the dungeons especially looks the part, with the web-festooned flambeaux casting dramatic shadows across the stone, and when the seventh years enter their classroom it’s to find Professor Roquette in a surprisingly good mood and four ready-brewed potions simmering at each of the four tables.

 

“Come in, you lot,” Roquette calls, beckoning them inside, “but don’t sit down. Wait up here at the backboard.”

 

Wally and Dick cast intrigued glances at each other as they obey the professor. The dungeon is suffused with the unusual scents and shimmering hazes of the potions Roquette has already brewed, and many students are sniffing curiously at the air as they file inside.

 

“Well, it’s All Hallows’ Eve, and you’re caught me feeling dramatic,” Roquette says, once the door is closed behind the last student. “Now, you might notice I’ve already brewed today’s potions – don’t get used to it, but I wanted to show the sixth years some of the rarer potions and it’s just your luck you have class right after them. Can anyone tell me what this first one is?” She walks to the cauldron nearest the front and scoops up a ladleful of inky, viscous liquid, flicking her wand through the air to direct the aniseed aroma towards the class.

 

Wally’s hand shoots up. “The Draught of Living Death. That’s super cool, professor, how long did that take you? Did you have to wait the thirty hours to add the poppy seed?”

 

Roquette smiles one of her rare, thin smiles at him. “Well done, Mr West. I did have to wait thirty hours, so overall the potion took thirty-eight hours to fill brew and mature. This is a controlled substance, since properly brewed it can induce a coma from which there is only a very small chance of awakening without magical intervention.”

 

“What are you going to do with the batch?” Artemis asks, eyeing the cauldron warily.

 

“Some will go to the Hospital Wing, in case Doctor Chapel ever sees an injury severe enough to warrant placing a student in a controlled coma, and the rest will either go to Saint Mungo’s, for the same purpose, or be destroyed. Now, who recognises this?” The professor covers the Draught, moves to the small cauldron at the back and lifts up the ladle to allow a thin stream of rich silver liquid to pour back into the cauldron. It seems to reflect the low light of the room like actual silver, glints of colour dancing across the stonework like flashes of sunlight caught by a mirror.

 

“Is that Dreaming Draught?” Grace McKinley asks, peering through her glasses at the potion.

 

“Indeed it is,” Roquette says, stirring the potion gently. “It is a beautiful but dangerous and restricted brew. If you add the right amount of certain ingredients, you can create, direct and control the subjects of another person’s dreams. Now, I wonder if anyone can tell me what this is.”

 

The mud-coloured potion in the middle of the room is bubbling with slow, gelatinous gloops over its low flame, and Dick knows immediately what it is. “Uh, Polyjuice Potion, I think?” he says, figuring it would be better to play ignorant.

 

“Yes, it is Polyjuice Potion,” Roquette nods. “It is carefully regulated by the Ministry because once a piece of hair or nail of another human is added this potion allows the drinker to assume that physical identity for one hour. Apparently it is a painful transformation, which is part of the reason for its restricted status.”

 

Professor Roquette adjusts the flame before she moves on, and as she’s looking down at the burner Wally catches Dick’s eye and raises an eyebrow at him. Dick nods slightly. He's taken Polyjuice Potion before, on a mission with Bruce where they had to infiltrate a contraband smuggling ring and needed more believable disguises than make-up, facial hair and wigs. Roquette is not exaggerating; actually, as Dick remembers, she’s understating things somewhat. It was horrifically painful to transform into someone else, and he fights the sudden urge to retch as the Potion’s smell of slightly foetid mud wafts towards them.

 

The last potion, however, is nothing like the others. The multi-coloured haze shimmering over the cauldron is shaping itself into spirals which reach lazily toward the ceiling and the rich ruby hue of the potion as it streams from the ladle is just this side of luxuriously decadent; it’s not like anything they’ve worked with before. “I wonder if any of you would contest this potion’s potential as the most dangerous in the room, even compared to the Draught of Living Death. Does anyone know what it is?”

 

There’s some shuffling of feet as the students try and get either a little closer or a little further away, depending on their sense of self-preservation, and eventually Amelia Triskel asks, “Is that a Solarium Solution?”

 

“No, but close,” Roquette says, “a Solarium Solution is more orange than crimson. Anyone else?”

 

Wally looks like he’s personally offended that the potion isn’t one he’s familiar with, and Dick bites his lip in amusement. Roquette scans the class for a few more seconds, and then smiles thinly. “This, ladies and gentlemen, is a freshly-brewed batch of Amortentia.”

 

Gasps rustle around the room like wind through forest leaves, and almost as one the class leans forward for a better look. “The highest standard love potion?” Megan asks, inhaling the aroma as the professor sends a small breeze through the room to carry the scent towards the class.

 

“Yes. It doesn’t replicate true love – nothing can – but it does create a deep and powerful infatuation that’s almost impossible to overcome without a counter-potion. The effect wears off only after it stops being consumed and has been flushed completely from the drinker’s system, which can take up to forty-eight hours. As many of the old stories enjoy brandishing in our faces, there is very little people won’t do for love, and here we have devotion in a bottle. In many cases, however, if there was no affection before the Amortentia, the person who has been drinking it goes back to being indifferent or even disliking the brewer. The scent of the potion, properly brewed, evokes a unique reaction in each person, as it smells like that which you love most, be it person, object or animal. Form a line and walk past, you’ll see what I mean.”

 

There’s a great amount of jostling for position as the class forms a line by the Amortentia, but Dick removes himself to the back without much fuss. He knows exactly what he loves most in the world, and has no desire for it to be flaunted before him in a classroom when there are still eight months to live without it.

 

Slowly the line creeps forward, each student inhaling deeply and wandering off either confused or delighted, comparing scents with each other. Wally takes a deep breath and looks suitably impressed, obviously regretting his exclusion of the more ‘humanities and social science’ branch of potions. “Woah, Artemis, it’s exactly like your shampoo! And mum’s lasagne and Aunt Iris’ special-occasions-only strawberry cake!”

 

“Shut up, dork,” Artemis huffs, but the pleased blush in her cheeks nearly matches the Amortentia in colour.

 

In the small commotion, Dick slips around the bench to the other side, using all his soft-footed shadow grace to avoid notice. Everyone is too eager to smell the Amortentia and compare their own experiences to really keep track of who’s still in line, and as the line dwindles Roquette is soon giving them their tasks for the day – reverse engineering some of the more dominant ingredients within the potions. As soon as their dragonhide gloves are securely on, Dick has no concentration left to worry about the Amortentia as he and Wally start testing their crucible of thick black liquid.

 

The sudden loud ringing of the bell an hour later jars them all out of their concentration, and Professor Roquette sweeps around to cover all of the potions and siphon them into various phials as the class slowly gathers their belongings. Dick has just reached the dungeon’s threshold, Wally already talking more to himself than to Dick about the correct proportion of rowan wood to silver sulphide, when Roquette moves on to the Amortentia. Dick goes rigid by the door and then lunges forward, away from the scent that wafting through the classroom, but it’s too late: he breathes in the smell of fresh sawdust from the centre ring, parchment and leather binding from the library at Wayne Manor, and spicy, heady cologne.

 

Dick fists a hand tightly in his robes over his chest, trying to clear his head. If he’d had any doubt, which he doesn’t, that would have been the straw which broke the donkey’s back. The scent of Bruce’s cologne has been entwined throughout his dreams since he was fifteen, and Dick doesn’t need some cheap liquid mockery of emotion telling him that he’s never loved anyone more than he loves Bruce.

 

“Hey, slowpoke, come on! Lunch is waiting!” Wally calls from down the corridor, and Dick takes one last breath of cool dungeon air before he follows. He’s been keeping his feelings in check for the last year; he can continue to do so for a little longer.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is fairly heavy on reminiscences and backstory, sorry! It had to go somewhere, but there's a trip to Hogsmeade to compensate. I hope you enjoy :)

Saturday dawns crisp and cold, the first snowfall in the air. Dick loops the thick red, green and gold chequered scarf Alfred gave him for his very first Christmas at Wayne Manor around his neck, pulls on his jacket, and stops by Bruce’s office before meeting his friends down in the Great Hall. He knocks, and is just pulling out his key when Bruce opens the door. 

 

“Dick,” he says, and opens the door wider. 

 

“Morning,” Dick grins, “are you going to be in Hogsmeade today?”

 

Bruce shakes his head. “No, I have the first years’ tests to grade and the fifth years’ essays to mark.” He looks at his watch as he returns to his desk. “You’re going to be late. You kicked up enough of a fuss in third year to get me to sign the permission slip.”

 

“Oh ha ha, bring that up, sure,” Dick says, sticking his nose haughtily into the air, “it’s not like a thirteen-year-old in a snit is more common than a grown man sulking about the house when his butler tells him to ‘sign the form, sir, or I will’.” 

 

“You could have been kidnapped right out of Hogsmeade with your penchant for getting into trouble,” Bruce retorts. 

 

“But I wasn’t,” Dick reminds him gleefully, “you were just being a grump.”

 

“But you could have been; Basil Karlo tried to get you when you were cleaning out the broom shed by the Quidditch Pitch.”

 

“But I wasn’t, and he didn’t. I just hit him over the head with a broomstick, cast the Jelly-Legs Curse and ran straight to Dinah Lance.”

 

“But you – oh get out, I have essays to grade,” Bruce makes some shooing motions, and adds a mild glare when Dick does nothing but laugh. 

 

“I’m going, I’m going, geez,” he snickers, smoothing down his jacket. If he was allowed – if it was possible – such easy banter and the comfort between them sometimes makes him remember his father teasing his mother and then pressing a kiss to her temple as he left. Dick’s lips feel like they’re tingling and _want_ clutches his stomach in an aching grip – the cauldron of Amortentia with its iridescent spirals and intoxicating aroma simmers in his head – but he’s sixteen, sixteen and still Bruce’s student, so he wrestles it down and forces a smile instead. He’s fortunate Bruce is looking down at his work: he would have been able to tell it was fake. “See you later.”

 

“Keep an eye out,” is Bruce’s reply, and Dick rolls his eyes as he slips out and closes the door behind him. No one need know he spends three seconds leaving back against the wood, breathing deeply and trying to regain control of his emotions, before making his way to the Entrance Hall. 

 

“Dude, hurry up!” Wally calls as soon as he sees Dick reach the Entrance Hall, “Or we’ll be stuck behind the first-time third years!”

 

“Alright, stay whelmed,” Dick says, jogging up to them, “we can go now.”

 

Wally grabs Artemis’ hand and leads them forward. All of their group is there, even Karen, whom Dick suspects was dragged downstairs kicking and screaming by Mal to get some fresh air. The caretaker Mr Smith lets them through with only one piercing look, as if he’s calculating the likelihood of them getting into some sort of mischief, and then they’re off down the main drive. It’s cold and brisk and beautiful, and puffs of steam appear every time they open their mouths. Barbara adjusts her scarf and tucks her hands into her pockets, shuddering theatrically. Dick chuckles and nudges her with his shoulder. 

 

“So, what’s up? How’ve you been this year? And your dad? It feels like ages since I got to talk to you.”

 

“I’ve been well, thanks. Taking that summer course on History of Magic was definitely a good choice, it’s come in handy with all the research reports Professor Pierce wants done. Dad’s well too, managed to take some time off over summer. I think he’s looking forward to Professor Wayne coming back to the Department, but he’s being all resigned and long-suffering about it. Says there hasn’t been a snow-balling, ‘oh it was meant to be a simple recon and now we have three underground black market trafficking rings’ kind of mission in months, and he’s just worked out the cramps the paperwork gave him.”

 

They laugh, heading out of wrought-iron gates and down the road to the village. “Well, to be fair, it wasn’t like we looked for crime syndicates, they just sort of...happened.”

 

“I don’t know if you have good luck, or bad.”

 

“Me neither,” Dick grins, and with a ‘hey, do you remember-?’ they launch into reminiscences of the preteen years they spent running around the Ministry when Bruce and Jim Gordon had Auror meetings.

 

Apart from knowing Conner existed thanks to Bruce’s friendship with Clark, Barbara had been the only person Dick knew personally coming to Hogwarts at age ten, and while she had been kind she had been nearly nine months older than he was and possessed of a calm air of self-confidence that came from being the daughter of the Head of the Auror Department. She hadn’t looked down on him, but to a ten-year-old boy her insistence that she knew best got old really fast. After meeting Wally on the train, Bruce mentioning that the nephew of a friend from the forensic section of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement was going to Hogwarts too, Dick and Barbara had been content to be classmates and fellow Ravenclaws. It had taken until third year, when they both took Arithmancy, for them to pick up their friendship again, but it hadn’t really been till fifth year, when the realisation that their classmates were mostly idiots who didn’t know how to study quietly burst in on them, that they considered themselves close friends. 

 

The outskirts of Hogsmeade village draw their attention, and Dick calls to Wally, “So where are you heading first?”

 

“Honeydukes!” Wally bellows, and Artemis punches him in the shoulder, rubbing her ear. “Sorry, babe,” he says guiltily. 

 

“I need a new quill, so I will head first to Scrivenshaft’s Quill Shop,” Kaldur says, pointing down the street in the other direction. 

 

“I want to stop off at Zonko’s,” Conner says, adding with a scowl, “if Marvin is going to keep being a moron I’m going to treat him like one.”

 

“Vanishing ink?” Dick asks, and Conner grins. 

 

Megan just rolls her eyes. “I promised Gar I’d bring him back some stuff from Zonko’s and Honeydukes, so we’ll go to the joke shop first and then meet you in Honeydukes.”

 

“We’ll probably still be there, I’m sure,” Artemis groans. 

 

“I think I’ll head to Scrivenshaft with Kaldur,” Dick says, “I should get some Christmas shopping done and Alfred mentioned wanting a new quill. And I also need to see if the bookstore has a book I’m looking for.”

 

“Well, let’s meet at Honeydukes in an hour and then go to the Three Broomsticks for lunch,” Barbara suggests. 

 

“See you later!”

 

Dick and Kaldur head off down Main Street, wending their way past packs of students and groups of the village inhabitants. Scrivenshaft’s Quill Shop is a few shops down from the local Quidditch supply store, and Dick hovers in front of the window for a few minutes, examining the latest in gear and broomstick service products. He feels the usual flare of pride in his chest when he sees the latest Moonbeam Enterprise 250 on display, along with some Wayne Enterprise Quidditch armour and broomstick servicing kits, and eyes a state-of-the-art miniature bronze compass and astrolabe set able to be clipped on to the handle for long journeys. He’s been mooning after it for months, and if it’s not a spoilt brat thing to say, he has a feeling Bruce or Alfred might be getting him one either for this birthday or for Christmas.

 

“You’re drooling, Dick,” Kaldur says drily, and drags him away.

 

Mr Nib greets them with the avuncular cheer he reserves for returning customers who tend to spend a lot of Galleons as the little bronze bell above the shop door chimes cheerily. “Good morning Mr Grayson, Mr Ahm, a pleasure to see you again! How are you? How has this year been treating you?”

 

“We’re quite well, Mr Nib,” Kaldur says, as Dick makes an excited beeline for an eagle feather quill and a sheaf of enchanted parchment that says it can move the ink around to different sections if you need to change the dates or appointments in a calendar. Alfred would like that, he hopes, but he doesn’t get far before Kaldur grabs the back of his jacket and tugs, playing the role of level-headed conscience to Dick’s impetuosity he adopted in second year when Dick got smart with Mr Smith. Dick stops and grins sheepishly, shaking Mr Nib’s hand and answering that yes, he’s fine thanks, and how is Mr Nib? Glad to hear it, no his holidays were nice but he’s looking forward to graduating, yes, now if he could see that calendar set...?

 

Mr Nib leads him over, rubbing his hands. “A very nice set, if I do say so myself!” He takes Dick through the enchantments and properties, allows him to test the quill and its effects on the parchment, and insists on adding a complementary bottle of ink when Dick pulls out his money bag at the counter. He’s more or less become accustomed to the affluence of his new life, but every now and then Dick still finds himself staring in shock at prices Bruce doesn’t bat an eyelid at, and still begins an instinctive protest that’s never heeded as Bruce or Alfred add another handful of Galleons to his pocket if he goes out somewhere. Dick is beyond grateful to Bruce and the comfort his new life affords, but he never wants to forget how to be careful with money. 

 

Kaldur makes his purchase too and they brace themselves for the cold outside, the first few flakes of snow beginning to fall. Both of them end up jogging to the bookstore trying to rub some feeling back into their fingers. 

 

“They don’t have my book,” Dick sighs, five minutes of searching later, “but I think Wally will like this for Christmas.” He holds up _One Hundred Muggle Experiments for the New Scientist_ , and Kaldur grins. 

 

Honeydukes is warm, crowded and full of the aroma of hot sugar when they squeeze their way to Artemis’ side.

 

“Thank god, Kal, I need you,” she says bluntly, and drags a bemused Kaldur off into the chocolate section of the store. Dick watches with enormous enjoyment as Artemis’ expression settles into her stern game face – she’s gesturing between two types of very similar chocolate, and it looks like a deadly serious conversation. He grins to himself and is just turning away to find Wally when Megan and Conner appear beside him. 

 

“How was Zonko’s?”

 

Conner holds up a bulging bag and smirks. 

 

“Excellent,” Dick cackles, “now come try the fudge. If they put out free samples on the weekend Hogwarts students come, they have to expect the ravaging hoards will descend.”

 

Wally’s already there, debating between apple caramel and chocolate coconut. Dick buys a bag each of the apple caramel, butterscotch and coconut ice, and gets Wally, who’s of age, to buy a packet of Bruce’s favourite Firewhiskey infused fudge. He pays him back once his voracious best friend has packed all of his many, many purchases in his satchel. 

 

“We ready to go? Barbara’s just paying now as well,” Artemis says, popping a Pepper Imp into her mouth and tossing her head back dramatically to exhale a thin tongue of flame. It considerably awes some nearby fourth years and she grins like the dragon she secretly is. 

 

“I’m dying for a Butterbeer,” sighs Megan, rubbing her chilled fingers, and Conner gently winds his scarf around her neck. 

 

“Let’s head over and grab a table, we’re blocking the counter,” Dick suggests as gaggle of giggling third years squeeze past them and almost trample over the stand of Cockroach Clusters. 

 

Hawk and Dove, the barmen brothers behind the counter of the Three Broomsticks, nod cheerfully at them as they make their way to a booth at the back, Conner just happening to glare ferociously at two six-years until they turn tail and disappear into the crowd. 

 

“The usual?” Dick asks, as Dove makes his way towards them. The others nod, so Dick orders everyone a Butterbeer and four plates of the best sweet potato fries in England, which arrive at the table the same time as Wally, Artemis, Karen, Mal, Raquel and Zatanna do.

 

“Cheers,” Wally says, lifting his tankard and then sculling down at least half of its contents. 

 

“Woah, next drink is on you,” Dick cautions, pulling a face as Wally belches impressively and then almost immediately whimpers and hunches over as Raquel gouges his ribs with her sharp elbow. 

 

“Sorry,” he grumbles, and drinks more slowly. 

 

The lunch time rush ebbs but The Three Broomsticks is always crowded on a Hogsmeade weekend: it’s many Hogwarts students’ favourite place in the village and the Butterbeer is practically ambrosia. Part of that is why Dick thought Bruce’s concerns about him being kidnapped were baseless – the pub is crowded and cheerful, and everybody tends to keep an eye out for the younger Hogwarts students. If he and his friends were in the habit of going to the Hog’s Head, it would be a different matter, but Dick’s only been there once, when Wally turned seventeen and wanted to try Firewhiskey for the first time. 

 

“Well,” Dick sighs an hour, two Butterbeers and too many chips later, “I’d better start on next week’s Arithmancy assignment. I’m heading back to the castle; anyone else?”

 

Mal pulls a face at him, muttering something uncomplimentary about Dick’s dedication to his schoolwork, and Karen punches his shoulder. “I’ve still got some stuff to buy in the village,” she says, “see you at dinner.”

 

Dick slides out of the booth, thanking Kaldur who stands to let him out, and picks up his bag. Zatanna, Conner and Megan follow and they wave to Hawk and Dove before wrapping their scarves around their necks, zipping up their jackets, and venturing out into the cold. Conner and Megan fall back a few paces as they make their way down the Main Street to the road that leads back to Hogwarts, and Zatanna steps in close beside him, tucking her hand into the crook of Dick’s elbow when he tucks his hands into his pockets. 

 

“So, how’s Alchemy going?”

 

They while away the trip back talking about classes, what they’re planning on doing after school, and places they want to visit. It’s mid-afternoon when they reach the castle, and Dick gently disengages his arm from Zatanna’s grip as he leads the way up into the Entrance Hall.

 

“See you in the Common Room,” he says, “I’m going to see if Bruce is in his office.” 

 

A flicker of something like irritated frustration darts across Zatanna’s face but she smiles and teases and sashays away up the marble staircase to Ravenclaw Tower. 

 

“See, not kidnapped,” Dick grins when Bruce opens the door. His guardian rolls his eyes and steps back, letting Dick in. 

 

“How was it?”

 

“Good, bought Alfred a Christmas present and stocked up on fudge. Here, I got you some,” and he hands over the packet. Bruce smiles, glances at the label, and then frowns slightly. 

 

“These –”

 

“I had Wally buy them,” Dick laughs, “of all the things I’ve done since living with you, which, by the way, includes both underage magic and magic in a Muggle-populated area, you worry about me illegally buying some sweets with alcohol in them.”

 

Bruce’s frown turns into a rueful little twist of lips and his eyes are fond as he looks at Dick, who has to distract himself from the stupid surge of fluttery feelings in his stomach by hanging his jacket and scarf up by the door. “Touché,” he says, “thank you.”

 

“You’re welcome,” Dick answers, “how did the essay-marking go?” He sits down on the other side of Bruce’s desk and clears a small space for his parchment, inkwell and text book, and settles in to start his Arithmancy as Bruce complains about the fifth years, wandering about the study as he does so in his quest to find where he put yesterday’s _Daily Prophet_. 

 

“Table by the door, under your hideous Hippogriff paperweight,” Dick says at last, grinning down at his parchment at Bruce’s small huff. 

 

He studies in Bruce’s office at Wayne Manor most of the time when he’s home – used to find Bruce wherever he was in the house and make himself comfortable nearby, especially in the weeks and months after his parents’ murder. He had been quite the puppy, tumbling about after Bruce, and the man had never minded, even after Alfred had made a tactful comment one day about Master Bruce needing peace and quiet to compete some paperwork for Mr Gordon. Bruce had welcomed Dick’s presence, awkward about his role in Dick’s life as he was, and had confessed once years later after a botched attempted kidnapping of the wealthy Wayne ward that he found the Manor too quiet now without Dick. Studying in Bruce’s Hogwarts office is a little different, and something Dick only started near O.W.Ls, eight months after Bruce started teaching at Hogwarts. 

 

Part of that was the uncertainty about his welcome now they had the dynamic of teacher/student on top of guardian/ward and mentor/mentee, and part of it was a fifteen-year-old boy’s determination to fit in with his classmates and not seek out his guardian. Mostly, though, it had been because Headmistress Prince had pulled him aside the first evening of Bruce’s teaching year and gave him a well-intentioned and thoroughly terrifying lecture on maintaining a proper distance from Bruce. 

 

Dick purses his lips at the memory and glances up at Bruce, sitting behind his desk and jotting some notes down from Vindictus Viridian’s tome. Bruce, aware of his gaze a moment later, looks up and smiles slightly as their eyes meet, quirking an eyebrow in question at Dick’s Arithmancy book. Dick smiles and shakes his head, lowering his gaze to indicate apologetic  _I’ve been staring off into the distance and now I’m concentrating again._

 

The first time he’d come to Bruce’s office had actually been a question on coursework, and then he’d stayed for another two hours because Bruce had a copy of the _Potions Grimoire_ from the Restricted Section that he and Wally had been dying to get their hands on. The second time had been a week after that when the library was too full of giggling, Halloween-mad students eating treats, but he had tried not to make a habit of it especially after Bruce introduced him to the sparring and exercise space into which the Room of Requirement could transform. 

 

It had taken a week of stress a month before O.W.Ls, a storm-tossed Quidditch match, and three consecutive nights of nightmares for Dick to appear at Bruce’s chambers an hour before dawn, trying very hard not to appear pathetically distraught. Bruce had opened the door a few seconds later, taken one look at him, and bundled him up on the couch in a nest of blankets and poured him a cup of Alfred’s special tea Dick hadn’t known Bruce had brought with him. Any hope of not making trips to Bruce’s office and living chambers a habit pretty much fell to the wayside after that, as did keeping the feelings Bruce evoked in the pit of his stomach platonic. Still, Dick never bandied his visits about and Bruce never went easy on him in class, so Professor Prince had never had anything more to say about it – much to their relief.  

 

When the clock chimes six, Dick starts gathering up his stuff. Bruce watches him for a moment and then asks, “Are you coming home for Christmas?”

 

“Yes, of course,” Dick says, closing his bag, “unless you’ve got a mission?”

 

“No, I was just wondering if you’d rather spend the holidays here with the library, given your workload.”

 

“The Manor’s library is fine, and there’s no way I’m missing Alfred’s Christmas dinner!”

 

Bruce walks with him to the door. "Alfred wants you back, he doesn’t think you’re eating enough when you study.”

 

Dick laughs and waves, heading back up to the Tower to drop off his bag before dinner. 

 

 * * *

 

The weather gets steadily colder after the Hogsmeade weekend, until one November morning the grounds are blanketed in crisp white snow and everyone’s wearing their cloaks indoors. Quidditch that weekend is all kinds of frostbitten fun, but Alfred taught Dick a handy warming charm years ago that he uses on his Quidditch robes, and he catches the Snitch forty minutes in where it’s lurking behind the ring of the middle Gryffindor goalpost. There’s no harm in repeatedly assuring Alfred that he’s a genius, and that Dick is still alive to appreciate his wisdom, so Saturday evening finds Dick in the Owlery writing a letter to Alfred, Etraxsus on his shoulder.

_...I don’t know if the first year dungeons will ever be the same again! Wally swears Bart didn’t have anything to do with it, and I think he’s right, but Professor Roquette is on the warpath. I suppose I would be too if a class of first years turned a basic Silencing Solution into a thick foam that coated all the bench tops and solidified. On that note, I got 93% on a Potions essay on the different properties of dragonfly wings and their uses in effervescent potions. I’m oscillating between N.E.W.Ts are going to be fine, and oh my god I’ll never be ready how does anyone survive this. So yeah. Asterous._

_Bruce asked if I was coming home for Christmas – I am, definitely! I want a last holiday before parchment purgatory. I don’t think I’ll be able to come home for Easter though, so if you would be so kind to a poor, tired, starving, Quidditch-triumphant student and feed him lots of chicken-and-leek pie, chocolate pudding, orange crepes, and your special apple tarte tatin he would be eternally grateful, constantly in awe of you – more so than usual, of course – and also stop referring to himself in third person._

_You’re the best, Alfred!_

 

_Dick._

 

He grins and rolls up the letter, attaching it to the leather strap on Etraxsus’ leg. “To Alfred, Trax, and don’t spend too long at the manor with all of Alfred’s bacon rinds.”

 

The owl hoots indignantly, butting his head against Dick’s cheek, and takes off with a whisper of feathers. He watches Etraxsus till the smoky grey of his plumage is indistinguishable from the night sky, and then just stays at the window for a while, gazing at the stars as the owls around him wake and swoop off for their hunt. 

 

Bruce bought Etraxsus for him the first time he left for an Auror mission after Dick had come to live at Wayne Manor, trying to soothe the sting of separation by gifting Dick his own owl even though Bruce had to warn him he couldn’t always write back, depending on the undercover nature of some missions.

 

He really was a mess the first time Bruce left on Auror business; about two months had passed since the death of his parents and the nightmares hadn’t abated. On the really bad nights when a storm raged around the huge old house and Alfred’s cocoa wasn’t enough to lull him back to exhausted sleep, he’d timidly make his way to Bruce’s room and ask if he could sleep on the couch at the foot of Bruce’s bed, used to hearing another person’s breathing in the small caravan he’d shared with his parents.

 

Bruce had let him for the first three times, but on the fourth, when the sobs hadn’t stopped and the thunder tore frightened little whimpers from his throat, Bruce had gathered him into his arms and tucked him under the covers of Bruce’s bed, thick quilt dampening the sound of the storm and Bruce’s heartbeat under his cheek the only sound that mattered. A week later, he’d told Dick he wasn’t just an Auror, like he’d said when he brought Dick home, but an A-class Auror, one of the best, highest-ranking Dark Wizard Catchers, whose particular skill was the solving of the impossible and the catching of the uncatchable. 

 

“So sometimes I’m going to be away for a while, Dick, but Alfred will be here even if I can’t contact you often. Do you understand?” He’d set the parchment containing his orders alight and crushed the ashes into dust. 

 

“But you’ll come back?” Dick had asked, hand clutching Bruce’s sleeve with white-knuckled intensity. He knew about Aurors, knew how important their work was and knew how dangerous it could be. Bruce’s face had softened slightly and he’d crouched down in front of the orphan, hand on Dick’s shoulder. “Yes, Dick, I will always try my best to come home.”

 

Even then he had known that was the only promise Bruce could make, and had accepted Etraxsus with a mixture of pleasure and dread. He spent the month of Bruce’s absence trying not to cry at the smallest provocation, and Alfred had eventually written to Clark, Bruce’s closest friend and the first English wizard Dick had met after Bruce and Alfred, to ask him to visit and cheer Dick up. It had worked – very few of Alfred’s plans didn’t and Clark’s sunny nature was almost impossible to dampen or resist – and the next few missions had been easier to bear. Once Dick had been enrolled at the local Muggle school to make sure his basic education was up to scratch in the year before he left for Hogwarts he had less time to fret.

 

Nearly a year after Bruce had taken him in, however, and six months left till Hogwarts, Bruce started returning late with wounds and injuries he hadn’t healed on the mission and refusing to tell him what had happened. This wasn’t technically unusual, considering the confidential nature of many missions, but Bruce had often given him a general overview, brought back a few little souvenirs, and told him about the scenery and the people he’d come across; his new silence, coupled with his short temper and stoic disregard for the lacerations and spell-burns marking his skin, had frightened Dick more than his absence. 

 

Staring out at the stars, and dodging every now and then when an owl flies through the window, Dick thinks back to his childish logic and shakes his head at his naivety. With all the confidence of youth he’d thought that since his family had died while he wasn’t there – he’d been climbing down from the trapeze to help the next act since he wasn’t old enough yet to join in the final manoeuvre – he’d have to be there to protect Bruce. Bad things happened to families when they weren’t together, so bad things could easily happen when Bruce was alone: that fact had been growing in his mind ever since he’d seen how lonely the Manor could be.

 

Dick still believes there was no other choice he could have made, childish naivety or no. Bruce is his whole world, has become so from the moment he wrapped his cloak around Dick, sat next to him on the bench by the centre ring where five bodies lay crumpled and broken on the sawdust, and carefully, slowly, gently put a hand on his shoulder without trying to tell him that everything was alright. Granted, his feelings for Bruce have evolved into a passion he didn’t expect, but even if they hadn’t Dick would still give everything, endure anything, in order to protect Bruce. He has thought so since he was nine. So, after Alfred had finally lost his patience with Bruce for spending so much time locked away in his study and kicked him out in May to take Dick to Diagon Alley for his school supplies, Dick finally had a wand.

 

The next step in his plan was to find out the date of Bruce’s next mission and skim all of his Hogwarts books in case he needed more than the basic healing, cleaning and mending spells Alfred had taught him. The latter was easy; the former required asking a few casual questions at breakfast one day framed as hopes that Bruce would be there to see him off at King’s Cross.

 

“I hope so, Dick. I’ll do my best, but this might be a long mission. Two-Face is acting up again, but I’ll Apparate back if I can.”

 

“Oh, okay. I was just asking, I know you’re busy.”

 

Bruce looked over the top of the newspaper. “Not too busy to take you to your first year at Hogwarts.”

 

Dick beamed at him, relieved, and then remembered the reason behind his question. “You’re heading off soon, then?”

 

Bruce nodded. 

 

“Okay. If you’re here next week can you take me into Wayne Enterprises again? I’d like to ask Mr Fox if I could borrow a book he was telling me about. He runs the company, doesn’t he? And watches over the production of broomsticks and Floo Powder?”

 

“Yes. My family began to make its wealth in the nineteenth century with innovations in broomstick manufacture, and in the early twentieth century my paternal great-great-grandfather invented the safest brand of Floo powder, which made the Waynes one of England’s wealthiest families along with the Vreelands, the St Clouds and the Cobblepots.”

 

“Who very swiftly lost their fortune,” Alfred added, “detestable family.”

 

“Quite,” Bruce said, trying not to smile. “Nowadays Wayne Enterprises manufactures the best broomsticks for both amateur and professional teams, and all-purpose Floo Powder. Lucius is CEO of Wayne Enterprises though I remain the owner and largest stock-holder, and he works with Mrs Baxter, the Head of the Department of Magical Transport, to oversee the sale and use of Wayne Floo Powder. I can take you in on Tuesday; I’m probably leaving Wednesday night.”

 

Dick had grinned in triumph and returned to his toast. In hindsight, he really should have thought of a better plan than hiding in Bruce’s large, many-compartmented trunk, but there weren’t too many other options. Bruce would have noticed him trying to follow through the Floo Network, if Bruce even used it, and there was no way Dick could get close enough to Side-Along without being noticed if Bruce Apparated.

 

Bruce had been absolutely _livid_ when he opened his trunk that balmy summer’s night in Krichim. Thinking back on it, Dick is lucky Bruce didn’t Apparate him straight back and lock him in Wayne Manor’s cellar, or worse, toss him into Good Hope Orphanage where he would have gone if Bruce hadn’t taken him in. Hell, he’s lucky Bruce didn’t strangle him there and then, terror for Dick’s safety and anger at his blatant disregard for rules combining into an unhealthy, apoplexy-inducing smorgasbord of wrath. It didn’t help Bruce’s temper either that a potential attack by enemies that night, not more than an hour after Dick’s discovery, was called off before it began because of Dick’s presence: Auror Wayne didn’t have a kid by his side, picking at his dinner under the man’s fulminating glare, so maybe this Matches Malone character was legit after all.

 

The fight which followed Dick’s discovery of Bruce’s target, a Dark Wizard called Rupert Thorne who controlled vast swathes of the European underworld and had been known to contract petty thugs like Zucco, was not made any less vicious by the whispers it had been held in.

 

“You can’t take Zucco away from me,” Dick had hissed near-hysterically for the fourth time, “he’s mine!”

 

“For the last time, no! You are a child, you are far too young to be chasing Dark Wizards; it’s too dangerous!”

 

“I was too young to lose my family, but that didn’t stop Zucco!”

 

“Dick –”

 

“Please, Bruce, please,” he’d begged, voice cracking and breaking as tears started stinging in his eyes, “I need to catch him, I need to see him behind bars for what he did! I want justice, Bruce, and I know you of all people have to understand what that’s like!” Fist over his stomach, the place where his loss still ached like he’d been kicked, he’d stared desperately up at Bruce and saw him fighting the inevitable conclusion that Dick was right.

 

“You need training,” Bruce had finally hissed, sitting down heavily on the bed and burying his face in his hands. “You cannot just rush out into the night and hunt down men much more powerful and much less moral than you and scream at them until they tell you where Zucco is. If we’re going to do this, it’s going to be my way, and you will still be attending Hogwarts in September. Do you understand?”

 

“Yes, Bruce, I promise,” he’d stammered, unbelieving for a moment that he’d really won his first fight against Bruce. “I’ll work so hard, I’ll do anything, I promise! You’ll see, we’ll get him.”

 

Bruce lifted his head and looked at him, weighing him up, a slender little ten-year-old with his fists clenched at his side, chest thrown out and chin jutting determinedly, eyes blazing, and had smiled a tiny, proud, aching smile. “I must be out of my mind.”

 

“All the best people are,” Dick had told him, flinging himself into Bruce’s arms. “Do you think Alfred is going to kill me?”

 

“Just be glad I didn’t,” Bruce replied, tucking one of Dick’s knobbly elbows against his side before it gouged his ribs again, “so he still has an indentured servant to clean all the floors a hundred times.”

 

Dick had groaned and whined and fussed but had accepted his punishment, and had thrown himself whole-heartedly into his new mission, never once complaining about any of Bruce’s strict training or the disconnect he sometimes experienced at Hogwarts among children who had no idea what it was like to hunt for a parent’s killer. Every minute, every bruise and aching muscle and long sleepless night going through countless maps, transcripts of conversations, pieces of evidence and tests of spell residue, had been worth it when they finally tracked Zucco to a small town a few kilometres away from the circus’ fatal show a few months into Dick’s first year at Hogwarts.

 

That he was kidnapped by Two-Face over a month later was rather ironic.

 

The anniversary of Zucco’s capture and arrest is coming up soon, in the last week of November. It’s been nearly six years, and Mr Gordon still sends him annual reassurances that Zucco remains in Azkaban without hope for parole. Murder and extortion while on a Dark Wizard’s pay role is taken rather seriously by Ministry officials, and Dick can still remember thinking the arrest after years of hard work, determination and deduction was the best early birthday present he could have had. Justice had been done, and Bruce, understanding that this victory wasn’t one Dick wanted to celebrate at an exclusive restaurant with gourmet foods he couldn’t pronounce, had found a beautiful old tree in a clearing near to the town that Dick had been born in, and taken Dick on a picnic with mountains of the inn’s motherly landlady’s best homemade dishes.

 

The expensive restaurant came a week later back in England for his actual birthday, with Bruce and Alfred once more finagling a weekend pass out of Headmistress Prince on the promise it would be the last one now Zucco was behind bars. 

 

Dick is pulled from his thoughts and reminiscences by a massive shadow swooping through the windows, and he holds out an arm to Gilgamesh, Bruce’s intimidating Eurasian eagle-owl. Gilgamesh stares down his beak haughtily at Dick, the ear tufts giving him a perpetually unimpressed expression, and Dick sighs at him, finicky arrogant bastard. How much owls reflect their owners is something he’s wondered over the years, and when Gilgamesh finally deigns to perch on his arm he’s glad he still has some of Etraxsus’ owl treats in his pocket.

 

“You’ve known me for years, you overgrown feather duster, and taken more than your fair share of chunks out of my fingers and bacon off my plate,” Dick murmurs to him, stroking his back carefully. Gilgamesh just blinks placidly at him like he isn’t planning on mauling and disembowelling some small, helpless mammal in the near future. For all the times the owl has delivered confidential ciphered letters from Bruce requiring corroboration from another pair of eyes or needing Dick’s specialities in language cryptography and Arithmancy – the only form of assistance Dick could get away with while Bruce was still an active Auror – Gilgamesh still treats Dick like a helpless fledgling and Etraxsus like a chew toy.

 

“Go on, then, shoo,” Dick tells him, waving his arm slightly to dislodge the owl, “I need to get to dinner.”

 

Gilgamesh stares at him unblinkingly and settles down, making to tuck his head under his wing. Dick groans, head thrown back in exasperation. “You are the most contrary son of a bitch I’ve ever met! Get off me!”

 

A few more shakes and wiggles of his arm later, teeth gritted against any sound of pain as Gilgamesh tightens his wickedly sharp talons around Dick’s forearm, the owl finally condescends to release Dick. “Thank you! You are such a bastard, I hope you know that.” He pulls one last face at Gilgamesh, who clicks his beak at him like he’s amused by Dick’s suffering – he wouldn’t put it past him, bloody bird – and rushes off down the Owlery stairs to get to dinner. He stops by the High Table where Bruce is trying to ignore Professor Roquette’s diatribe on the loss of her Quidditch team in this morning’s _Prophet_ to tell him, “Your owl is an arrogant sadistic jerk, I hope you know that.”

 

Bruce looks up, amused. “What did you do this time?”

 

“Me?” Dick squawks, “What makes you think I did anything? I didn’t, I was being perfectly nice, he was the one clawing me and getting all nice and comfortable when I wanted him to get off me! He’s a contrary son of a bitch.”

 

“Language,” Bruce says automatically, and Dick rolls his eyes, stealing a gulp of his guardian’s apple cider just for that. “Gilgamesh is a pure-bred Eurasian eagle-owl, he can’t help being high-strung.”

 

“You are incorrigible,” Dick informs him, trying to iron out any inappropriate warmth in his tone in front of the other professors. Bruce smirks at him. 

 

“I’ll remind you of that the next time Etraxsus chokes up a pellet on my study carpet.”

 

“Geez, that happened once!”

 

“Go eat, Dick, hunger is clearly making you delusional,” Bruce says, shooing him off and protecting his goblet from further attack. 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope my Quidditch action scenes aren't too dodgy. Enjoy!

There’s a fortnight till Dick’s birthday and three weeks till the Christmas holiday, and though the seventh years are still being pushed to capacity and then some, the workload seems to have plateaued for a moment. The professors have other years to whip into shape before the holidays and seem to be giving them time to review the material covered so far. Dick’s beyond thankful to finally have some breathing room, partly because the anniversary of Zucco’s arrest falls on a Thursday, his usual late-study day. He closes his books at seven pm instead of ten and heads to Bruce’s room to curl up by the fire, a rare glass of wine in their hands.

 

This particular vintage was his father’s favourite; Bruce had somehow found out and on that picnic six years ago offered Dick a sip from his glass as they toasted the Graysons. As a ten-year-old Dick had scrunched up his face indignantly at the taste of the red wine, but now at nearly seventeen he can appreciate the complex flavours. It’s bittersweet – everything about this is. His father should have been here to introduce Dick to his adult taste of wine, but if that was the case, he wouldn’t have gotten to know Bruce.

 

Two bittersweet eventualities, and this anniversary is always more bitter than sweet. Bruce doesn’t say anything unless Dick speaks first: they sit silently by the fire, but Dick never feels alone like this.

 

When they finish their wine Dick steps in for a rare hug and tucks his face in against Bruce’s neck. Spicy cologne and the warmth of Bruce’s skin: Amortentia rears its head again, and Dick’s self-control is beginning to fray under the strength of his want.

 

“Goodnight,” is what he says instead as he pulls away sooner than he would have liked, “thank you.”

 

“Sleep well, Dick,” Bruce replies, and his hand doesn’t leave Dick’s shoulder until he’s over the threshold.

 

He does sleep well, which is a relief. It’s always a bit of a gamble on nights like this.

 

The next week is also nightmare-free, and Dick finds himself in such a good mood as a result he takes Friday evening off study a week before holidays, much to Karen’s horror. He just grins and shrugs, plays chess against Kaldur, has a Bertie Bott Busters competition with Wally where players try to answer trivia correctly and the loser eats a bean and can’t spit it out even if it’s Bogie or Brussel Sprout, and helps a few Ravenclaw first years including Tim Drake and Victor Stone plan an epic snowball fight before the first years’ Herbology lesson next week out in the grounds.

 

This year’s eleven-year-olds seem to be a good crop. Bart is doing well and the first years’ diverse timetable allows him to use the can’t-sit-still energy which characterises the Allen-West-Garricks, even if Wally teases him for his budding friendship with Slytherin first year Jaime Reyes; Garfield is relishing the opportunity to make friends, receive compliments on his metamorphmagus abilities, and get into a bit of mischief every other month; and Lagan’s brash excitement of being in a school with other witches and wizards and making new friends is, if not subdued, then toned down much to Kaldur’s relief.

 

The other first-years Dick has come to know by sight, but he makes it his responsibility to get to know those in Ravenclaw. He doesn’t pick favourites, but he seems to have made an impression on Victor Stone and Tim Drake the first time he caught them sneaking down to the Restricted Section for a dare and softened their detention with compliments on their well-organised route and diversions to draw Klarion and any patrolling prefects away from the library. Since then, even though they’re as nervous as first-years tend to be around the older years, the boys have made it their business to pounce on him every so often and ask him questions about his and Wally’s own near-legendary pranks at Hogwarts and about some of their coursework.

 

Dick returns the interrogation: as he is well aware, gossip and knowledge of what’s going on among the student body at any one time is both currency and power. He has his sources around the castle, and Tim and Victor are eager to fill him in on anything interesting going on among the first years. He also has a valuable source in Bruce. Professors are not immune to the trade of information in the close-knit school and Bruce has information-gathering down to an art. Dick can usually get the latest stories out of him about the other houses, though Bruce tends to treat these sessions as training in deduction, source evaluation and corroboration.

 

Naturally, Friday’s evening off turns into an informal gossip session over chess – Kaldur as Head Boy gets the most exposure to the students and the staff – and that afternoon’s story of a group of third years’ run-in with Klarion, a bucket of soapy foam, and the trick step which alternates between the third and fourth floor staircase swiftly begins to circulate through the school.

 

“So Hol had to pull Sorchese, still covered in foam, up by his armpits since he was that far into the step,” Wally guffaws. He’s lounging in an armchair by the fire and flinging chocolate-coated nuts into the air to try and catch them with his mouth. Every so often Artemis snatches one out of the air and watches gleefully as Wally mouths at empty space.

 

“Ouch!” Dick chuckles, before ordering his knight back to defend his queen from Kaldur’s bishop, “Don’t think they’ll be too eager to skip class next time and then antagonise Klarion while they’re at it.”

 

“The name sounds familiar,” Kaldur muses as he frowns at the chess board, “has he been caught up in trouble before?”

 

Wally shrugs, offering a nut to Artemis in a futile attempt to stop her stealing his, but Dick purses his lips in thought.

 

“Sorchese...I think he’s a Beater on the Slytherin team, but I don’t know if he’s had detention before.”

 

“Wait, yeah, I remember,” Wally says, sitting upright, “Bart mentioned him a while back, said his friend Jamie –”

 

“Jaime.”

 

“– sure, him, had told him about a few third years getting busted by a Slytherin sixth year prefect for trying to fill the inkwells in Transfiguration with invisible ink. I think it was Sorchese, sounds like cheese so I remembered it.”

 

“Of course you did,” Artemis sighs fondly, pressing a kiss to Wally’s cheek.

 

“Invisible ink, geez, that’s never been done before,” Dick rolls his eyes and directs his castle to take Kaldur’s remaining knight.

 

“I’m glad you have your priorities in order,” Kaldur smiles, trying to minimise the risk to his king. “If, as you say, Sorchese is on the Quidditch team, may I suggest you keep an eye on him? Ravenclaw plays Slytherin tomorrow, and if he and his friends have been given another detention for another failed prank, he is not likely to be in the best of tempers.”

 

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Dick says, “check.”

 

He remembers Kaldur’s advice just before the Ravenclaw team leaves the changing rooms the next morning and for a moment he considers slipping his wand into his robes. In the end, though, there’s really nothing a third-year could do to him that he couldn’t block or avoid, so Dick finishes his stretches and waits for Alexa to wrap up drilling the last of their formations into the Chasers' heads.

 

“Got that? Good. Come on, you lot, it’s time,” Alexa barks, “brooms up and game faces on!”

 

They march out onto the pitch with a wall of cheers and hisses echoing in their ears, and face the Slytherin team with Madame Shayera Hol hovering between them. “Snow’s forecast for tomorrow, so watch your altitude,” she tells them, “mount up!”

 

A second later, her whistle goes and fourteen broomsticks shoot into the air. Dick peels up and left, keeping his eye on the shimmer of gold until the Snitch is lost behind a flurry of blue and green, and then urges his Solarflare into a fast lap around the pitch, watching as the Chasers tussle for possession of the Quaffle. Mal is Quidditch commentator, and his magnified voice booms out across the stadium.

 

“Slytherin takes the Quaffle, Fenroy dodges Jun and makes her way to the Ravenclaw end. It’s Kitt to Fenroy, now to Momsen and back to – Bludger by Ravenclaw Beater Aspley interrupts play and the Quaffle is caught by Jun! She’s off!”

 

Dick dives and sweeps low over the pitch, a blur of green out of the corner of his eye telling him the Slytherin Seeker is keeping him in sight. He pulls up at the Slytherin end and soars above the goal hoops as he hears Mal shouting out the first ten points to Ravenclaw. From there the game turns into a fast-paced test of reflexes, with the Quaffle passing from player to player almost faster than Mal can track. Ravenclaw advances to 20-0, then Slytherin gets past Wilkinson and start catching up. 20-10, 20-20, 30-20...The Beaters send the Bludger rocketing through every so often, but the Chasers’ fast pace results in enough fumbles that the Bludgers are almost superfluous.

 

That is, until one of the Slytherin Beaters decides to stop using the Bludger as a distraction and starts aiming at players. Most of the time that’s a standard tactic, but the best Beaters know Bludgers don’t have to make impact to affect play and it’s considered ill-mannered, though not illegal, to aim the ball at a player’s back. Ravenclaw has just pulled ahead again when Sorchese thumps a Bludger directly at the back of Ravenclaw second year Chaser Sarah Sandston’s head.

 

She doesn’t notice, having just grabbed the Quaffle from Slytherin possession, and Dick has milliseconds to react. He kicks the Solarflare into a burst of upward speed, grabs Sarah around the head, and pulls her down and out of the way. He’s just in time, but the ball slams into the back of his right arm where it’s curled around Sarah: white-hot pain erupts as his humerus breaks and the point of his ulna shatters. The impact and his own instinctive recoil tips Dick forward and sideways; his left hand is still tight on the Solarflare’s handle but he’s off, shit, gravity has swung him off the seat of his broom as he dangles a hundred feet above the ground.

 

“Dick!” Sarah shrieks, putting together the last three breathless seconds as the Bludger spins away. She had nearly dropped the Quaffle when he’d knocked into her but it’s still in her fingertips; she glances at it and drops it anyway – Kitt catches it triumphantly though the stands are screaming and roaring their fear and displeasure – to sink to Dick’s level where he’s swinging one-handed from his broom.

 

“I’m fine!” Dick gasps, and kicks some more momentum into his swings until he can jerk the stationary broom down into a shallow dive and curve himself up onto the seat just in time to level off. The stands are still ear-splitting and Alexa is cursing at Sorchese, gesticulating wildly at Madame Hol; Dick just tucks his broken arm against his chest and into his robes to hold it still and soars off.

 

“I’m fine,” he yells again at Alexa, “play on!”

 

Slytherin scores in the meantime and Madame Hol signals for play-on.

 

Dick can just hear Mal calling out the score and recapping his injury over the wind in his ears and the pain in his arm as he does another lap of the pitch. Ravenclaw is furious now, and Sarah, their youngest member and possibly the sweetest girl he’s ever met, is practically incandescent. Dick ignores that, ignores the other players except the Slytherin Seeker: they’re not his concern, but this, the open sky, is his kingdom, his domain, and like fuck is he letting a broken arm slow him down now. Sarah could have been seriously hurt by a Bludger to the back of the head, and anger at Sorchese’s reckless little rebellion spurs him on.

 

A glint of gold – he wrenches the Solarflare up with one hand and urges it on, pressed flat against the handle, and the crowd gasps as the Slytherin Seeker scrambles to follow. The Snitch darts back and forth in the open sky, then flits away as he crests the top of his ascension. It dives down, closer to the Slytherin Seeker, but Dick just rolls into a ninety-degree hairpin turn and dives into pursuit. He rockets downwards, the other Seeker trying to urge his own broom into a similarly sharp turn without much success, and they practically point their broom handles at the ground below.

 

One hundred feet, fifty, twenty, ten – the Snitch begins to slow and Dick locks his broom between his knees, takes his only hand off the handle, and snatches the fluttering little golden ball out of the air. He’s already shifting his weight back, trying to slow his dive, and as the stands erupt he hooks his left elbow around the Solarflare to yank it out of its vertical descent, levels off, and curls forward and tilts sideways into a barrel roll to slow down. He’s going too fast to pull the broom to a proper stop with only one working arm and a hand full of the Snitch, so Dick rides out the three rolls it takes to ease off the Solarflare’s speed and then hauls himself upright, hovering five feet about the ground. He thrusts his left hand victoriously into the air, Snitch fluttering weakly in his fist, and the crowd goes absolutely mad.

 

Sarah Sandston is the first one to reach Dick, right arm still tucked protectively in his robes, and she carefully throws her arms around him as they clamber off their brooms. The rest of the team soon arrives and hugs him as best they can, and Alexa Jun roughly pushes past the landing Slytherin team to haul Dick’s good arm, still clutching the Snitch, over her shoulder. She tells their Keeper to see the Solarflare safely returned to the Ravenclaw team’s broom shed and begins to chivvy the team off the pitch.

 

“Yeah, yeah, come on you lot, to the Hospital Wing. Nice dramatics, Grayson. If you want to impress me, break both your arms and catch the Snitch with your mouth.”

 

“Yes, Alexa,” he says obediently, grinning at her as she woman-handles him up the slope to the castle. The others follow, patting him on the back and going over the highlights of the match – from what it sounds like, Sorchese better hope he doesn’t run into any Ravenclaw down a dark and deserted corridor for at least a week.

 

“Dick!” Wally is tearing up the slope behind them, Artemis, Kaldur, Conner and Megan a ways behind him. “You okay, man? That was amazing! You were totally kickass out there, you just rocked a hundred feet dive like it was a slide in a playground!” He reaches the team and thumps Dick on the back, beaming at him. “You guys were totally awesome too,” he adds to the others.

 

“Pleb,” Alexa mutters.

 

“Thanks, Walls,” Dick says, and bereft of a working hand to fist bump his best friend, knocks his head gently into Wally’s in recompense. “It got pretty close there at the end.”

 

“Understatement of the year, bro,” Wally says, “I have a feeling Sorchese is going to find himself in someone’s bad books for a very long time.”

 

Dick winces. Bruce is going to find subtle and creative ways to make Sorchese suffer, and it will all so be completely above board Headmistress Prince herself won’t be able to intervene.

 

No sooner do they reach the Hospital Wing than Doctor Chapel kicks the rowdy group out, telling them to come back in an hour.

 

“That bad, Doctor?” Dick grimaces as she shoos him to a bed and gently begins undoing his Quidditch robes to pull them off his broken arm.

 

“It’s a bad break, Richard,” she says, clicking her tongue, “although it’s not the worst you’ve had.” Waving her wand over his arm, she purses her lips and shakes her head. “Murderous sports at a school for children,” the doctor mutters, “what next? Dragons in Care of Magical Creatures?” It’s her standard Quidditch rant, and every injured player has heard it.

 

Dick just smiles winsomely up at her. “But you’re wonderful, Doctor Midnight,” he says, using the school’s nickname for the tireless doctor, “I’d put all my money on you versus the dragon.”

 

“Honestly, you charmer,” she tuts at him, trying to suppress her smile. “You’re as bad as your guardian. Now stop your flattery and drink these.” Handed two goblets, one filled with a purple potion to numb the pain and the other a dose of the noxious-smelling Skele-grow Dick is unfortunately quite familiar with, he drinks them and when he can’t feel his right arm anymore she waves her wand up and down the limb. He grits his teeth at the sensation of his bones knitting but the pain is dulled by the potion and fifteen minutes later Doctor Chapel pronounces him healed. “It will be stiff tomorrow, so do some stretches to warm it up and take it easy for at least a day – ideally more, but I know you.”

 

“Aye aye, ma’am.” Dick wriggles his fingers and carefully rotates and stretches his arm under Chapel’s supervision, and then slips his arm back into his sleeve and starts doing up his robes. “Thank you for your flawless fix.”

 

“You’re welcome,” she says. “It’s your birthday tomorrow, isn’t it?” Doctor Chapel produces one of his favourite lollipops. “Are you too old for one of these?”

 

Dick beams at her. “Never!”

 

She pats his good shoulder and then shoos him away, telling him to be careful. He waves and closes the door behind him to find all his friends waiting for him on the other side.

 

“Hey, guys!”

 

“All fixed?” Zatanna asks, hugging him.

 

“Yep, good as new,” he says, “thanks for waiting!”

 

“Come on, party in the Ravenclaw Common Room,” Wally announces gleefully, “I stopped by the kitchens and asked the elves for a few plates of food. I suppose you guys can come too,” he says to the others, looking down his nose at Hufflepuff yellow and Gryffindor red, and his girlfriend thumps his shoulder.

 

“And just who’s going to help bring up all the food? We can leave you to it if you really want.”

 

They make their way to the kitchen to collect the food from the eager little elves, thank them, and head on up to Ravenclaw Tower.

 

“What does every creature possess that is used more by others?” The raven knocker asks as Wally manoeuvres a hand free to rap on the door.

 

Artemis groans. “I can’t believe you guys have to do this every single time. What if you need the bathroom, or need something for class?”

 

“Ravenclaws learn to be prepared,” Karen says smugly.

 

“Is it a shadow?” Barbara asks from behind a plate of profiteroles.

 

“No,” replies the knocker, and Conner and Mal share an exasperated look.

 

Dick grins. “The answer to your question is a name.”

 

“Succinct and correct,” the knocker says approvingly, and the door swings open. A loud cheer goes up as soon as Dick steps through the door, and the Ravenclaw team hurries forward to help distribute the food. He runs upstairs to get changed, and then wanders round the room, people patting his back as he passes, congratulating him and telling him how impressed they were with his dive and with his defence of Sarah, who practically glues herself to his side for most of the night. Tim and Victor are particularly star-struck, and Dick has to make them promise not to try and ambush Sorchese in the near future.

 

“Careful,” Barbara murmurs an hour later when they cross paths by the last of the mini pies, “your head's getting so big even your Solarflare won’t get you off the ground.”

 

“Up yours, Babs,” he says fondly, and she punches his good shoulder.

 

A minute later, a second year by the window cries out in shock as an owl raps its beak impatiently on the glass.

 

“Let it in, then,” Gregorian says, reaching over to unlatch the window. Dick looks across the room and recognises Gilgamesh, who glares at him, hoots, and then takes off before Gregorian managed to open the window all the way. “Huh, maybe he’s headed for the Owlery,” he says, and closes the window against the cold wind.

 

Dick knows better. “I’ve been summoned,” he murmurs to Wally, handing him his glass of pumpkin juice, “see you later.”

 

“We’ll cover for you,” Megan promises, and he slips quietly out of the Common Room.

 

Bruce pulls open his office door before Dick can knock. “Your arm?”

 

Dick holds it up as he steps in, shutting the door behind him. “Fine. Doctor Chapel fixed it in ten minutes.” Warmth suffuses his chest as Bruce reaches out for the limb, gently skimming his fingers over Dick’s upper arm and testing the flex of his elbow.

 

“That Beater is lucky you were there,” Bruce growls, “if that Bludger had hit the Chaser it’s possible she could have been killed. I’ve had a word with Diana, Shayera and Hal – he’s banned from the next five games.”

 

“Bruce,” Dick chides, but falls silent at the look on his guardian’s face – his guardian for only another seven hours, he realises, and curses internally as his heartbeat kicks up into a gallop.

 

“Dick, he could have seriously injured someone; he did hurt you,” Bruce says, letting go of his arm and guiding Dick to his sofa, “if it had been up to me, if I were the Head of Slytherin House, I would have dropped him from the team all together. Hal can bleat on about potential and misdirected anger and authority issues all he likes; that boy needs to realise all his actions have consequences sooner rather than later.” He remains standing to pour water into two teacups, for which Dick is grateful – the desire to press himself into every curve of Bruce’s body, to reassure Bruce he’s fine as he soaks up all the heat of the older man’s bigger body, is almost overwhelming. Secretly, it’s at times like this that he relishes Bruce’s protectiveness: it has always been both safety net and springboard to Dick’s high-flying endeavours. Most of the time, of course, it pisses him the hell off.

 

“Okay,” he simply says, smiling up at Bruce as he hands Dick a cup of tea a minute later.

 

“Okay?” Bruce repeats, sitting next to him.

 

“Yeah, okay,” Dick says, nudging Bruce’s shoulder with his own before retreating a few centimetres away for self-preservation. “You looking forward to the holiday?”

 

“Some peace and quiet wouldn’t be amiss,” Bruce says, accepting the change in subject, “I’ve had at least one student per hour up here today. A few have legitimate questions or are asking for confirmation of a research path, but the majority are being lazy and looking for shortcuts. How are your subjects going?”

 

“Well enough,” says Dick, “I’m having to put more time into Charms than I thought I would, since Hal is looking for in-depth analyses rather than a long essay that barely scratches the surface of different aspects. As for Defence Against the Dark Arts, well,” he grins coyly up at Bruce before he realises quite what he’s doing, “you tell me.”

 

“Don’t fish for compliments, Dick,” Bruce says, mouth curving even though he’s trying to be severe, “it’s unbecoming.”

 

Dick laughs and finishes the last of his tea. 

 

“You are doing well – very well,” Bruce admits suddenly, “and you flew admirably today.” 

 

Dick turns back to face him, happiness unfurling like a flower inside him. “Thank you,” he replies just as quietly, tuning down his cocky smirk into a pleased little grin. He wants to ask about Bruce’s abrupt emotionality but he doesn’t want to break the spell. Besides, he has a feeling it’s due to the milestone hovering on tomorrow’s horizon. “Bruce...about tomorrow...”

 

“Are you free tomorrow evening?” Bruce asks, cutting across Dick’s half-formed enquiry. 

 

“Yes,” he answers, “why?”

 

“I asked Hawk and Dove if we could have a booth from six tomorrow, for your birthday dinner. Alfred’s coming up and I’ve already spoken to Diana. Is that alright?”

 

Dick is beaming at him. “That would – yes, thank you, I’d like that. Alfred’s coming up too? He doesn't have to, we are going home next week.”

 

“Of course he is,” Bruce says, and his eyes – Dick’s not imagining it this time, he’s sure, it’s not just wishful thinking – are very soft as they sweep over Dick’s face. “It’s your seventeenth, he wouldn’t miss it. You can have your friends over in the holidays, and Clark says he and Lois would like to stop by to see you then too.”

 

“That’d be asterous,” he says, and he really needs to pull himself together: the firelight, the _don’tthinkit_! intimate setting, the way Bruce’s body is turned towards his and the way he’s leaning into Bruce…it’s all going to his head, and Dick is still sixteen, still Bruce’s ward and still Bruce’s student. 

 

He swallows, and Bruce’s eyes dart to his throat. 

 

 _Oh_ _god_...heat sparks in his stomach, a flash-fire of want and desire scorches through him, and he knows his pupils have dilated. Pull back, pull back – 

 

Bruce stands abruptly, breaking the taut thread between them, and strides to his desk, but tension still lingers like electricity in the air. Dick focuses on his breathing and wills the heat in his cheeks and the ache in his groin to fade. He is officially whelmed, he needs to think about this, he needs a breath of air that isn’t infused with the rich scent of Bruce’s cologne. 

 

“There’s – there will be a few legal documents to go over tomorrow,” Bruce says, back still turned, “but they will be relatively easy to take care of. We should leave at a quarter to six.”

 

“Right. Sounds good. I’ll – I’ll see you tomorrow, Bruce.”

 

“Good night, Dick.”

 

He manages to walk down the corridor before his knees threaten to give out, and Dick slips into the first empty classroom he finds. Holy shit, _holy shit_ , he couldn’t have imagined all that, he’s sure, couldn’t have imagined the soft look on Bruce’s face or the slight rasp in his voice when he was standing at the desk, couldn’t have made up the fact Bruce had to physically move away to break the breathless tension between them –

 

Dick digs his fingers into his hair, exhilaration singing in his veins: Bruce feels the same way.

 

He does, he has to: it’s the only explanation. Dick’s birthday suddenly much more momentous, and June seems so far away. It’s not a revelation, not really – there have been enough hints in the past for Dick to accept his own feelings and no longer wonder if he was projecting emotions onto Bruce or if he was tricking himself into seeing something that wasn’t there – it’s more of a confirmation. Now he has solid evidence to support his plan for the future, and the relief, the sheer _relief_ that this isn’t unrequited infatuation with a man fourteen years older and unattainable, leaves Dick feeling simultaneously that he’s sinking into the desk and that he’s floating high into the air. 

 

“Keep your head, Grayson,” he says to himself, and takes several deep breaths, counting his inhale, hold and exhale. “Don’t mess it up now, there’s still six months to get through, and the N.E.W.Ts in June. Keep it together.”

 

With one last deep breath, Dick shakes off the jitters of adrenaline, calms the butterflies in his stomach, and returns to Ravenclaw Tower. 

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first part of Dick's birthday, containing many presents, some giggles, and a snow ball fight; the second part with all the interesting bits will be up on Thursday :)

The Quidditch victory party has mellowed into people lounging about, picking at the last pieces of food and talking about the upcoming holidays. Dick slides easily back into the crowd, takes immense enjoyment out of startling his friends with his sudden reappearance, and ambles up to his dorm half-an-hour later after rounding up the last of the revellers.

 

“You looking forward to t’morrow?” Wally asks sleepily as he wriggles around under his covers.

 

“Yeah,” Dick says, hanging up his jumper and ignoring the way the butterflies in his stomach flutter, “definitely.”

 

“Cool,” Wally mumbles, “my present is totally the best, just so you know.”

 

“Thanks, Walls,” Dick smiles, and blows out the last candlestick before curling up under his covers. The anticipation makes it hard to sleep, but soon enough the warmth of his bed and the soft ache of his healing arm sends him off to sleep before he can get to fifty-three Kneazles.

 

He wakes early the next morning to a delicious curl of excitement in his chest, the hazy knowledge that something good is going to happen today. He luxuriates in the bubbly warmth of anticipation for a few moments, grinning to himself like an idiot under his covers, and then sits up to find presents of all shapes and sizes piled neatly at the foot of his bed. Dick pulls on his dressing gown, wraps his duvet around his shoulders, and crawls down his bed to reach his gifts. For a moment he just stares. So many people have sent something to celebrate his seventeenth – there’s even a package from Mr and Mrs Kent, Clark and Conner’s parents in the farmland of Herefordshire. Jim Gordon has sent something, as has Lucius Fox, Barry Allen, and Mrs and Mr West, and all his friends at Hogwarts have their names on jaunty little tags each waiting for him to unwrap them.

 

Dick basks for a moment in the sheer joy of being loved, of finding a family again after his had been taken from him, and hastily blinks the prickly heat out of his eyes as he leans over to his bedside table and picks up the picture of his family that has pride of place there. The whole troupe of the Flying Graysons is gathered under the Big Top, beaming and waving in their bright costumes. Bruce asked Clark’s colleague Jimmy Olsen to retroactively treat the photograph to make the subjects move, and somehow he’d succeeded: Dick’s heart aches at the smiles and laughter on his parents’ faces, an arm each around his tiny eight-year-old shoulders as they wave to the audience. He brushes a careful kiss to their faces and smiles back.

 

“I know you’d be happy to see me now,” he whispers. “I love you.”

 

Wiping his eyes and making sure to smile, and not just cry, in memory of his family, he sets the gilt frame gently back down and picks up the Kents’ present. Mrs Kent is the best baker he’s ever met, rivalling even Alfred, and Dick has to make a concerted effort not to drool at the sight and smell of a batch of his favourite raspberry and white chocolate cookies, and a slice of apple pie that’s still steaming gently in the container. He can’t not eat the pie now, it would be a travesty and an insult to Mrs Kent, and also he doesn’t trust Wally within a hundred feet of this transcendent, heavenly confection. He eats slowly and leisurely, enjoying every mouthful, and then stashes the rest of the biscuits in a little chest Alfred gave him one Christmas that opens only if you tickle it in the right spot while unlocking it with a tiny silver key. 

 

Lucius has sent him a personal batch of Floo Powder in drawstring pouch enchanted to never let the contents get wet; Jim Gordon’s gift of a bottle of Ogden’s Firewhiskey has a note attached reading, _Glad to see you lived to reach your majority_ – _enjoy_ ; andClark and Lois Lane-Kent have sent him a beautifully tooled crimson leather-bound notebook that can sew itself closed whenever it feels threatened and can blank out its pages if opened without the requisite spell. Barry and Iris’ present is a bezoar, a cure to most poisons and something hard to get hold of in a normal potions shop, and Rudolf and Mary West send him a book titled _Nothing to See Here: Fifty Easy Spells to Clean Up the House Before Your Parents Get Home_ , which sends him into paroxysms of laughter he tries to muffle under his covers. That’s it, Mary knows what happened to her fake Delicious Monster plant that one sleepover where Wally and Dick didn’t know the cherry chocolate actually had cherry liquor in it.

 

Wally will probably want to see him open his present, so Dick sets the tiny lumpy parcel aside and reaches for a neat package in silver with a tag saying it’s from Kaldur. Inside is a new pocket-sized Sneakoscope, done in midnight blue like the night sky. 

 

“Thanks, Kaldur!” Dick whispers to himself, grinning in pleasure as he puts the Sneakoscope on his bedside table. It sits there perfectly balanced and silent, waiting for some dishonest deed to set it off. His previous one had been broken last year in a confrontation with some assholes down in Hogsmeade. The four young men, clearly bored now they were out of Hogwarts with nothing to do and stuck in a tiny village, had been hiding in the Shrieking Shack and terrifying all of the younger students who’d walked past; Dick, Conner, Wally and Artemis had taken immense pleasure in accepting their offer of a brawling fistfight and sent them crawling home with shiny black eyes and their tails between their legs. 

 

He tucks his feet under the duvet as he opens the other presents. Conner’s gift is a pair of black gloves that the label says have been spelled with a three-year Adhesive Charm at the fingertips for good grip while climbing; Megan gives him a painting of a lakeside sunset he’d admired the last time they were in the art shop at Hogsmeade; Karen and Barbara combine forces and send him the two-book encyclopaedia of cryptology whose review in the _Daily Prophet_ he had raved about; Mal’s parcel contains a collector’s edition set of posters for Dick’s favourite Quidditch Team, the Romanian Rockets; and when he sees Artemis’ present, which has a warning on the tag to keep quiet about it while still at school and turns out to be a three-inch knife with straps that allow it to be worn on the ankle, he’s glad he decided to get her the deluxe version of the Swiss Army knife instead of the standard one for her birthday.

 

Raquel gets him a book of word games – inside the front cover she’s written, _Let me learn you a thing, boy, xoxo_ – and Zatanna’s gift is a fluffy scarf which changes colour to reflect its wearer’s mood. His dorm mates Gregorian, Julius and Maxwell give him a healthy dose of Honeydukes sweets and a few more supplies from Zonko’s, and Grace McKinley, the other Ravenclaw female seventh year, sends him a handy little pipette for erasing ink errors on his parchment. 

 

Dick has just tucked this into his schoolbag when Wally wakes with a snort. 

 

“Mmmpie,” he mumbles, fixing a bleary eye on Dick. 

 

“Mrs Kent’s apple pie?” Dick asks innocently, starting to clear away the piles of wrapping, “The one whose recipe was passed down for generations and never shared outside the family? That pie?”

 

“Mmm hmm,” Wally says, licking his lips. 

 

“I ate it,” Dick informs him, smirking, and dodges the pillow a distraught Wally flings at him. 

 

“How could you raise my hopes like that,” he moans, “I thought I was your friend!”

 

“Dude, I ate it like half an hour ago, it’s your creepy sense of smell that got your hopes up,” Dick tells him. 

 

“How come you got – oh yeah! Happy birthday, man!” Wally sits up and beams at him, and Dick grins back. 

 

“Thanks!”

 

“Have you opened mine yet?”

 

Dick shakes his head, “I was waiting for you to wake up.”

 

“Sweet, open it now!” Wally squirms off his own bed to bounce onto Dick’s, stealing a Cockroach Cluster from the pack Gregorian had given him. 

 

Dick takes exaggerated care opening the present, and when he finally unfolds it he finds himself staring at –

 

“Socks,” he deadpans. 

 

Wally bursts out laughing, and has to bury his face in the discarded pillow when Maxwell snuffles in his sleep. “Your face, oh man,” he gasps, tears streaming down his cheeks, “best thing ever! Look inside.”

 

Dick bites his cheek to try and stop himself from ruining his poker face at Wally’s infectious guffaw, and does as he’s told. Inside the rolled up pair of lumpy grey socks is a small bronze brooch made out of an old English penny, Britannia bold on the obverse and George V on the reverse. “Thanks, man! This is really cool!”

 

“It gets better,” Wally says, “I treated it in Veritaserum: it’ll glow blue whenever it comes near illusions created by Dark Magic.”

 

Dick gapes at him. “Walls, that’s awesome! Thank you. That’s some super cool potions skill right there.” He hooks an arm around Wally’s neck and reels him into a sideways hug. Wally squeezes him back, and they knock heads with a grin. 

 

“Take care out there, okay? It took me a while to train you into best friend material, don’t wanna have to go through all that work again.”

 

Dick chuckles. “The way I remember it, I was the one training you.”

 

“Pffff,” Wally scoffs, “what world are you living in?”

 

“The one where my best friend doesn’t eat all my sweets – give it back!” Dick flings himself across the mattress, seizing Wally’s ankle as he tries to escape with a packet of Sherbet Lemons, and they end up tussling on the floor with the duvet tangling their legs as Wally tries to eat the whole packet there and then and Dick tries to stop him without actually choking him. 

 

They head down to breakfast a while later, bronze brooch gleaming on Dick’s jumper and Zatanna’s scarf a buttery yellow around his neck, laughing like hyenas at an old joke they’d forgotten.  

 

It’s the first day of December, and Mr Smith with the House Elves have clearly been busy: garlands of pine dotted with glittering baubles and stretches of glittering tinsel have been strewn throughout the castle overnight, and the suits of armour are decked in the season’s finery. Christmas cheer soon infuses through the corridors, and when Dick and Wally reach the Great Hall the twelve majestic Christmas trees are being decorated by Professors Jordan, Nelson and Pierce with stain-glass bubbles, permanent ice flowers, a little train circling through the branches, baubles in all the Houses colours, and stars that shimmer and twinkle.

 

Dick loves magic, loves Hogwarts, and when he and Wally reach their friends he makes sure to sweep everyone into a hug to thank them for their gifts. He spots Raquel first and lifts her a few inches from the ground in his hug; she makes a half-hearted attempt at a protest and then presses a kiss to his cheek when he sets her down. Dick follows her over to her table and pulls Conner up into a hug, back slapping included. Conner retaliates by squeezing until Dick is the one whose toes leave the ground. 

 

Megan drifts over from the Hufflepuff table to see what Dick is doing to her boyfriend, and Dick promptly wriggles out of Conner’s grasp to twirl her into his arms and waltz her across the back of the Hall where there aren’t any Christmas trees in the way. Mal accepts a hug, whacking Dick cheerfully on the back, Karen pretends to strangle him with his scarf when he whirls her around, and they both wolf whistle as Dick manages to coax both Barbara and Grace into waltzing with him down the same path along the back of the Hall. He’s laughing so much it hurts as the two ladies stumble and trip into one another, arms entwined about his neck. He returns them to the table, breathless, and overhears Wally explaining to Tim and Victor that, “It’s his birthday, he thinks he’s allowed to act like an idiot,” as he pulls Kaldur into a hug. 

 

“I am glad you like it,” Kaldur says as Dick thanks him for the Sneakoscope. 

 

“Definitely, it’s great! I’m totally feeling the aster –” he spots Artemis and winks at Kaldur before swooping down on her. 

 

“Oh no,” she says, “absolutely not, don’t you dare!”

 

Dick hoists her up from the bench anyway and whirls around with Artemis bridal-style in his arms, squealing in a way she will categorically deny later as she wraps her arms around his neck in something approaching a stranglehold. He’s probably bright red with exhilaration by now, and he’s definitely dizzy; Dick adds his own laughing cry to Artemis’ voice as he feels himself stumble and begin to overbalance. Just as he thinks Artemis will never forgive him for falling over with her, he senses a rush of magic around him and suddenly his balance is restored.

 

“You’re such a troll,” she tells him as he carefully sets her down, and it’s a mark of her affection that the punch she lands on his shoulder is soft enough not to bruise. Dick presses a kiss to her cheek and straights up, looking over his shoulder with a grin. As he expects, Bruce is making his way to the High Table up the side of the Hall and the man levels a reprimanding look at him as he meets his gaze. Dick winks at him, and Bruce rolls his eyes long-sufferingly.  

 

Dick thanks Tim and Victor for their birthday wishes as he settles down at the end of Ravenclaw Table, piling his plate high with waffles, sausages and roasted mushrooms. 

 

“You gonna have space for lunch?” Karen asks sceptically as Wally passes Dick a rack of toast. 

 

“I was thinking we could have a snowball fight to work off breakfast,” he says, “what do you think? You in?”

 

“Sure thing,” Mal says, “free-for-all or teams?”

 

“Teams,” Wally answers immediately, latching onto his girlfriend. Artemis is lethally accurate with a snowball. 

 

Dick’s about to answer when Zatanna sashays into the Great Hall, and he stands to greet her. “Hey, Z, thanks for the scarf! It’s pretty awesome.” He scoops her into a hug, but when she brushes her lips against his ear and begins to tug him back out of the Great Hall a shiver runs down his spine. The sensation’s definitely not all bad, but when he catches a glimpse of the mistletoe just outside, it’s not all good, either. Dick opens his mouth but Zatanna forestalls him by reaching up to adjust and smooth down the scarf. “You’re welcome,” she says, smile curving into something sultry. “It looks good on you.”

 

The scarf decides just then to match Dick’s sudden unease and turns grey. Zatanna just laughs, a promise in her eyes, and rises onto her tiptoes with her hands on his shoulders. As she tilts her chin up Dick turns his head sharply so her lips meet his cheek. 

 

They’re motionless for a moment, his hands on her waist, hers on his shoulders, before Zatanna slowly pulls away. Dick meets her gaze steadily. 

 

“Got your eye on another girl? Guy?” she asks, disappointment flitting across her face.  


“Sorry, Z,” he says, quirking a small smile. She had been his first proper kiss, since he’s fairly sure he doesn’t count the quick peck on the lips Reyna from the circus had given him when they were nine, at a party in the summer holidays after their fifth year. It had been a celebration of their O.W.L results and a general end-of-term party; the punch Karen provided had been liberally flavoured with vodka and they were tipsy enough to find everything funny. It had been nice, but even then Dick knew she was a second choice, and didn’t want to hurt her by going any further with it. He’s kissed Raquel, Barbara and Laurentia from Slytherin before, too, but those were all one-time things under the mistletoe in sixth year.

 

“Well, let me know,” she tells him, “and have a good day, birthday boy.” 

 

“Thanks,” he says again. 

 

Zatanna smiles and steps back out of the little alcove she’d guided them into, joining the trickle of late Sunday sleepers into the Great Hall. Dick sighs, rubbing at his cheek till her lip-gloss is gone. He hopes he hasn’t hurt her, but his heart hasn’t been his to give since he was fifteen and curled up on Bruce’s office sofa, Bruce resting a hand on his shoulder and picking up a copy of _Quidditch Through the_ _Ages_ from his desk to read out loud in the hopes of lulling Dick back to sleep.

 

The thrum of yesterday’s exhilaration is still in his veins, and Dick doesn’t want to cheapen Zatanna’s friendship by letting one awkward-almost moment affect them or dampen his day, so he grins when he sees Gregorian and Maxwell coming down the stairs and steps forward to thank them for their gifts. He returns to the table with them, laughing at Max’s description of his dream, and lets Wally yank him down next to him and claim him for the snowball fight. 

 

The promised snow battle is _vicious_. An hour later they’re all exhausted, covered in snow, and freezing, but Wally somehow still finds the energy to dance around chanting, “We are the champions,” until one of Conner’s snowballs explodes into white dust in his mouth. 

 

“Strike!” Mal yells, laughing so hard he has to brace himself on his knees. Wally splutters in outrage and Dick can’t just waste the last snowball in his hand. He nudges Wally, winks, and hurls his missile with just the right amount of spin. It catches Mal in the forehead when he straightens up, and he goes over backwards, landing with an _oomph_ on his ass. 

 

“Free for all!” Karen shrieks like an avenging angel, and the air is thick once more with a flurry of snowballs. Megan’s accidentally gets Kaldur in the stomach when Barbara ducks, and in her dismay doesn’t notice Raquel’s stray ball heading straight for her. Conner takes the hit like a true gentleman, and goes down with a curse. Dick dodges both of Mal and Karen’s shots but shouts in shock as Zatanna shoves a handful of snow down the back of his shirt. He wriggles around, laughing, as he tries to brush it out – if she feels better he doesn’t mind – and gives chase. She runs screaming behind Artemis’ mini fort where Artemis is holding Marvin, his girlfriend Wendy, Gregorian and Grace at bay. 

 

“Get the birthday boy!” Artemis hollers, and the war cry is swiftly taken up by the others. 

 

“Hey!” Dick yells, throwing himself down behind Sir Edgar Allen Snow, Megan’s jaunty lopsided snowman, to avoid the first volley. 

 

“Edgar!” Megan wails as a stray snowball takes his head off. 

 

Dick takes off up the slope while they’re distracted. 

 

“Get him!”

 

A minute later Dick finds himself on his stomach in the snow, flailing helplessly under the body of Sir Edgar. The snowman has clearly been sacrificed to a higher cause, and his weight is enough to pin Dick down until his friends can reach him.

 

“My loyal subjects,” he wheezes up at them, grinning, “it is with deepest joy that I accept your offer of the title King of General Awesomeness –” and promptly splutters as Conner drops a pile on snow on his face.

 

“Come on, hot chocolate time!” Wally fishes him out of the snow drift and pulls Dick back up to the castle. 

 

Mr Smith looks askance at them as they tramp in, damp and dirty, and they grin sheepishly.  

 

The thrill of acting like hyper children in the morning, however, is soon dampened by the realisation they have to pretend to be adults and get back to their study, and the afternoon is spent in the library. Dick got a massive bucket of Bertie Botts Beans from Julius this morning, and he puts it on the middle of their table in case anyone needs additional sustenance after the thick stew and fluffy bread at lunch. A Transfiguration essay is made much more enjoyable by the occasional gag induced by a vomit-flavoured bean, but by the time Dick turns to his Ancient Runes assignment it’s nearly four and he reads the same sentence three times before realising it, his mind darting ahead to distract him with thoughts of this evening. He disappears into the forest of shelves to find some peace and quiet, and eventually forces himself to concentrate on parsing a string of Nordic runes wedged in between a section on magizoology and the library wall. 

 

The next time Dick looks at his watch, it’s ten to five, and a surge of giddy excitement effectively shreds the last of his attention. He calculates he has just enough time for a shower in the prefects’ bathroom, and returns to the table and packs up his parchment along with the last of his books. 

 

“Where are you off to?” Barbara asks, looking up. 

 

“Alfred’s coming up for my birthday and Bruce is treating us to dinner in Hogsmeade,” Dick says, trying not to grin like an idiot at the prospect and not sure he succeeds. “See you tomorrow, and keep the beans.”

 

Dropping his stuff off by his bed, Dick opens his wardrobe and tries not to overthink things. He settles on a new pair of black jeans, boots, a red long sleeved button-up, a black waistcoat, grey scarf, and his favourite black greatcoat with long tails and a glorious rich crimson silk on the inside. Wally’s brooch gleams brightly on his lapel and Dick has to stop himself from spending more than five minutes on his hair. One last glance in the mirror, and he nods decisively to himself. Putting his gloves and wand in his pockets, Dick slips out of his dorm and takes a few lesser-known shortcuts behind various tapestries down to Bruce’s study. 

 

Knocking on Bruce’s door, Dick catches himself smoothing down the lapels of his coat and tucks his thumbs in his pockets instead. The door opens a second later, and his mouth goes dry. Bruce’s button-up shirt is Dick’s favourite shade of sapphire blue, and he’s dressed in most of a three piece suit with the immaculately cut slate grey jacket sitting on the chair behind his desk and the silver tie in his hand. 

 

“Dick,” Bruce says in greeting, and gestures for him to come in. “Happy birthday.”

 

“Thank you,” Dick replies. “Is that a new tie?”

 

“Yes.” Bruce loops it around his neck and begins to tie it, hands deft and sure. The tie is shot through with Paisley shapes in a lighter silver thread which are only revealed when they catch the light in just the right way, and it’s immediately Dick’s new favourite. The blue of Bruce’s eyes is stunning by contrast, and Dick has to fiddle with the _Daily Prophet_ lying on the desk to stop himself from staring. As it happens, he misses Bruce’s eyes sweeping down Dick’s body from head to toe when he looks away. 

 

“How was your snowball fight?”

 

“Brutal,” Dick snickers, rubbing his side and his newly healed right arm, “you should have seen my overarm shot, it got Mal right in the forehead and knocked him flat on his ass.”

 

“Good aim,” Bruce commends, and why people assume Bruce is his father is a mystery: his parents used to tell him to play nice instead of encouraging him to use his peers for target practice. 

 

“I thought so,” Dick remarks, “but I gather he didn’t.”

 

Bruce smiles slightly and slips his jacket on. He does up the buttons, adjusts his cuffs, and then nods at Dick’s new brooch. “Interesting piece.”

 

“Isn’t it? Wally gave it to me this morning, he says he’s treated it in Veritaserum so it’ll glow blue in the presence of Dark Magic illusions.” Dick runs a thumb over the penny, admiring its shine. 

 

“Impressive,” Bruce acknowledges, “Wally has an excellent career ahead as a potions researcher and developer. I wouldn’t be surprised if he is the person to crack the cure for Acromantula venom. Last I heard, a wizard in Uganda came the closest but his potion still put the victim into a coma for four months.”

 

Dick beams, and makes a mental note to pass Bruce’s opinion on to Wally. The most common complaint among the students is Bruce’s lack of praise; he’s certainly not one to coddle but Bruce has always acknowledged talent when he sees it demonstrated above and beyond the set task. 

 

“Speaking of today,” Bruce goes on, and nods with a small smile towards the armchair by the fire. Dick turns and bites his lip in pleasure at the sight of half a dozen gifts waiting for him.

 

“For me?” he asks, grin breaking free. 

 

“No, for Alfred,” Bruce retorts, sitting on the couch to watch him unwrap them. 

 

Dick laughs and plops down next to Bruce as he reaches for the top parcel. “Well, he has put up with me for this long.” 

 

“Just rip it, Dick,” Bruce tuts after he spends a minute carefully peeling the tape off the wrapping. 

 

“Shh,” he commands, finally unfolding the paper and opening the box revealed underneath. “Yes! Thank you, Bruce! I’ve been dying to get my hands in this.” He lifts the astrolabe broomstick attachment eagerly from the box and examines it, pointing out the compass features to Bruce as he goes. 

 

The next gift is a book on advanced curses and counter-curses, which Bruce strictly forbids Dick from using in Defence Against the Dark Arts, and the third is a box of Dick’s favourite, individually wrapped, exceedingly hard to get milk chocolates handmade by a mountaintop Swiss chocolatier. He groans in pleasure at the sight and can’t resist popping one straight into his mouth, collapsing bonelessly against the couch as the rich decadence explodes over his tongue. “Thank you,” Dick moans, and hastily ties the ribbon on the box back up before he can be tempted to eat another. Bruce just smiles, eyes fixed on Dick’s face, and hands him a small jeweller’s box. 

 

Dick glances at Bruce, intrigued, and opens it. Inside is – 

 

“Bruce...” he breathes in awe, stroking a reverent fingertip over the silver pocket watch. 

 

“It’s tradition at your age,” he merely says, smiling. “The face is spelled to be nearly shatter-proof and the charm powering the gears should only need to be recast every decade or so.”

 

The pocket watch is no bigger than Dick’s palm with a delicate chain to link it to a belt or a waistcoat button, and the lid is engraved like Bruce’s. Where Bruce’s has palmettes and elegant vines framing the gothic letter W, however, Dick’s new watch has little stars and intricate feathers radiating along the bottom and sides of the graceful letter G. He caresses the lid once more and then depresses the little catch on the bottom where the 6 o’clock sits and hears the lid open with a little click. When Dick lifts it he sees silver numerals and four slender hands, the hour, minute and second ones and one longer one which tracks the moonrise, on a skeleton watch face with the beautiful intricate cogs and gears visible behind the hands. He’s just about to close it with something in his throat that feels a lot like his heart when he sees the word engraved on the inside of the lid. 

 

“Fly,” Dick whispers, touching it with a careful fingertip. 

 

Bruce’s pocket watch also has writing on the inside lid, chosen by Alfred. When Dick was a child Bruce used to let him spend hours learning to tell time with his watch and he’d traced his finger over the words inside the lid so many times he could write them with his eyes closed. “Ever onwards,” he says now, and thinks of how perfectly the little mottos match. 

 

Heart too full, Dick closes the watch and tilts sideways, pressing his face into Bruce’s upper arm. “Prepare yourself,” he says, muffled, “I’m going to give you the hug of your life when I’ve finished.”

 

He feels Bruce’s hand on his head, in his hair, for a brief, precious second. “Consider me forewarned.” 

 

Dick levers himself up, blinks rapidly to make sure he hasn’t started tearing up again, and slips the watch into his waistcoat pocket, attaching the chain to the button second from the bottom. “Perfect,” he announces huskily, and reaches for the envelope with his name on it. Swiftly his reverent joy turns to a much safer excited glee as Dick sees two top-tier tickets to the European Quidditch League final held in Madrid next July. “Ah, yes! This will be the light at the end of the school year tunnel! We can swing by that piazza again, the one with the amazing gazpacho.”

 

He turns to grin at Bruce, and sees an odd expression in his eyes. “Bruce?”

 

“Those – you don’t have to feel obliged to invite me, Dick. The tickets are yours.”

 

Dick frowns at him, confused. “But we always go to Quidditch games together. Why wouldn’t we go to this one? Don’t you want to?”

 

“Of course I do, I just thought you might like to invite one of your friends.”

 

There’s a very slight hitch before the word ‘friend,’ though Dick is sure only he and Alfred would be able to tell, and he suddenly thinks he understands Bruce’s reticence. “No, I don’t have any friends I want to invite, male or female,” he says, and tucks the tickets back in the envelope. “I’ll bet you a galleon it’s Belgium against Czechoslovakia this year; I really don’t think Denmark has what it takes this time to keep the trophy.” 

 

“I’ll take that bet,” Bruce replies, and the tension seems to have vanished from the corner of his eyes. “It’ll be Sweden versus Italy. Here, I had this done to certain specifications: I think you’ll like it.” Bruce hands Dick the large rectangular present at the back of the armchair and sits back. 

 

“Oh?” Dick scrabbles at the edges, too eager to worry about ripping the fabric, and reveals a smart black leather briefcase with silver fastenings. “Ooh, definitely feeling the aster! Real suave, Bruce.”

 

Bruce hands him a key. “Look inside.”

 

Dick takes the key, examines the blank metal sheet where a keyhole would usually be and casts a suspicious look at Bruce. He pulls out his wand and murmurs several revealing and neutralising charms, and Bruce looks on proudly as Dick works out the correct spell for the keyhole and inserts the little steel key. Once the lock snicks, he opens the catches with two satisfying clicks and lifts the lid. 

 

“Now that is cool,” he marvels. Inside the briefcase is bigger and deeper than it appears to be on the outside, and has a multitude of pockets and secret compartments. There’s even space in the capacious bottom for a collapsible cauldron and a change of clothes, and Dick runs a hand along the inner lining, grinning. “This is perfect for Auror work, am I right? Nondescript on the outside, a wealth of secrets within.”

 

Bruce smirks. “Feel free to enchant it with any security spells or curses you like. It’s yours, and soon the leather and the locks will start to know your magic. And don’t fill every single pocket straight away. I know how tempting it is, but start with your basics and any emergency equipment you might need, and see what works for you.”

 

“Awesome,” Dick says, and adds the briefcase key to the keychain in his bag holding Bruce’s office key, his trunk key and the key to the little chest upstairs. “Can I leave these here till after dinner?” 

 

Bruce nods, gathering up the wrapping and disposing of it. Dick sets all his gifts careful down on the couch and steps forward into Bruce’s path as he makes for his coat hanging by the door. His heart is thumping and jumping in his chest as Dick opens his arms. “I did warn you,” he says, and wraps his arms as tightly as he can around Bruce. Bruce returns the embrace, enclosing him in his arms, and Dick revels in the warmth and safety of the hug.

 

“Thank you,” he whispers, “for everything.” His gratitude is overwhelming and all-encompassing, and his love for Bruce, so hard to contain when he’s so close and warm and safe, is infinite and unconditional. From the first moment Bruce was there at the worst time of his young life to all the presents he's received over the years, from the little things like making sure Dick has spare parchment and enough money when he goes out to the warm, glowing look Bruce gives him whenever Dick has made him proud or catches him by surprise, Bruce has been the most important person in Dick’s universe, the sun to his solar system. 

 

He pulls away long before he wants to. Dick would stay for hours in Bruce’s arms, a lifetime if he could – and is determined to eventually – but though the age restriction and Bruce’s guardianship are now two less impediments, he’s still a student at a school in which Bruce is a teacher.

 

There’s also, if Dick is honest, the lingering fear that Bruce doesn’t reciprocate his affection in the way he wants him to. A sense of self-preservation, of masking his heart to protect it from harm, strongly resists telegraphing to Bruce just how much Dick wants him; if he stays enclosed in Bruce’s arms, like his presents in their beautiful, careful wrapping, he risks discovery thanks to the overwhelming surge of hormones heading south. 

 

Bruce lets him take half a step out of the hug, and then cups the back of Dick’s neck. “Happy birthday,” he says softly, and the smile is warm in his eyes. “Let’s go, we’ll be late to meet Alfred.”

 

They’re halfway down the drive before Dick remembers to ask about the legal papers. 

 

“As you are now officially an adult, the courts no longer define you as my ward, a minor dependant on the guardianship of a legal adult. You are still my heir, the only difference in your life now, Dick, is everything that comes with being of age: using magic outside school, Apparating legally, and being responsible for your own actions and their consequences. There are some forms to fill in about inheriting the remainder of your parents’ money and about emancipating from my guardianship, but after that life goes on, I hope, as it has.” Bruce flicks a glance at Dick. “Nothing much will change.”

 

Dick fully intends that things will change, but he thinks he knows what Bruce means. As glad as he is to have reached his majority, his seventeenth is tempered by the fact that he is no longer Bruce’s ward and that he has no legal connection to him now, apart from being his heir. “You’re not kicking me out and converting my room into...I don’t know, a Lepidoptera collection?”

 

“Why on earth would I collect butterflies?” Bruce asks, and Dick is just about to sigh and tell him to forget it when he spots the teasing gleam in Bruce’s eyes. He grins back, laughing. 

 

“I don’t know, it’s not the weirdest thing you’ve ever done. Alright, if not butterflies, how’s about stamp collecting?”

 

They while away the rest of the cold walk finding progressively stranger hobbies until they reach the beginning of Hogsmeade’s Main Street, lamps glowing brightly on the snow-dusted ground. Bruce puts a hand on Dick’s arm just before they step onto the sidewalk, turning to him with an earnest seriousness. “You know you always have a home at Wayne Manor, Dick.”

 

“I know, Bruce,” he says softly, “thank you.”

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part refused to co-operate at first, but I wrangled it into submission eventually. I hope you like finished product! And all the UST! ;)
> 
> (And the cheesy plot device) Who said that?

Alfred is warming his hands by the fire just inside the Three Broomsticks when they arrive, and he waits for them to hang up their cloaks before stepping forward and letting Dick give him a quick hug. “Happy birthday, dear boy,” the butler says, patting his back, and Dick beams at him. 

 

“Thanks for coming up, Alfred! I didn’t expect you to, I thought I’d see you next week for holidays as usual.”

 

“Honestly, Master Dick,” Alfred sniffs, following Hawk as the landlord leads them to the booth and passes around the menus, “would I miss your seventeenth birthday? I think not, young man. Now come, sit down and order something warm. How has your day been?”

 

Dick chatters on about the presents he received, the snowball fight, the decorations in the castle, and pulls out his new watch to proudly display it to Alfred. 

 

“A very handsome piece indeed,” he says, “a most proper gift for a young gentleman.”

 

“I don’t know about gentleman,” Dick says wryly, dipping some bread into one of the entrée dips. 

 

“Nonsense,” chides Alfred. “In fact, I have something here that would suit this rather well.” He hands the watch back to Dick and pulls a small velvet box out of his pocket. “With my compliments, Master Dick.”

 

“Thank you, Alfred!” Dick grins and opens the box. Inside are two little square silver cuff links, about the size of a thumb nail, with the letter G incised in the same font as on his watch. “They’re beautiful.” Dick glances slyly at the butler as he removes them from the box and begins fastening them onto his cuffs. “Are you always this omniscient, Alfred?” 

 

The butler smiles serenely. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

 

“So Bruce wouldn’t have said anything at all about the design on my watch?” He casts a quick grin at the man, who’s watching their interaction with a poker face and a smile in his eyes. 

 

“Well, perhaps he did mention it once or twice,” Alfred allows, and exclaims in satisfaction at the sight of the cuff links in Dick’s shirt. “A splendid match if I do say so myself.”

 

“I was going to say it, but you beat me to it,” Bruce says, lifting Dick’s wrist to examine the links. “Well chosen, Alfred.”

 

“Thank you. So, I hope, are these.” He places two other neatly-wrapped gifts on the table, and then moves them a second later as Hawk comes to deliver their main courses. 

 

“You’re spoiling me,” Dick protests, reaching for the nearest one. 

 

“Hardly,” Bruce says, “if I wanted to do that I would have bought you Honeydukes.” 

 

Dick splutters into his Butterbeer and Alfred sighs long-sufferingly. 

 

With his dinner in front of him Dick is less careful with his unwrapping skills, and soon has two luxurious silk ties in front of him, one emerald green with leaves embroidered in gold thread and the other lined with dark grey, navy and black stripes, and a small bottle of aftershave, which lends more of a subtle fresh citrusy scent to his skin than the rich and spicy aroma of Bruce’s. “Thank you!” Dick enthuses, stoppering the glass bottle and clearing away the wrapping. 

 

“My pleasure, dear boy. Now, your preference for colognes will change and develop as you grow; this lighter scent is more appropriate for a young man.”

 

Dick nods and sets the gifts aside. The rest of dinner is filled with reminiscences and titbits of news from recent days; when Bruce brings up Dick’s Quidditch accident yesterday Alfred’s lips thin in displeasure and he addresses some choice words to the absent offender rendered no less terrifying by his precise and proper diction. Dove brings out a decadent slice of dark chocolate and raspberry cake with a jaunty candle sitting in the ganache, and Dick grins as some of the villagers at the bar launch into a rendition of _Happy Birthday_. 

 

The cake is sumptuous, and Dick lets his eyelids flutter closed on a moan of delight. To be fair, he doesn’t have an ulterior motive until he lets his eyes crack open and sees Bruce look away and down at his own more modest fruit tart, shifting infinitesimally in his seat. Frissons of glee shiver through Dick, delighted at the hint of a reaction, but with Alfred sitting opposite there’s no way he can continue the show. 

 

Alfred orders them all a small glass each of Amaretto but before they arrive he reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a small tube. “Master Dick, this arrived from Genova today, addressed to you at Wayne Manor.” He hands it over with a small smile, explained when Dick sees the sender’s name on the label. 

 

“Jack Haly!” He grips it tightly, emotions beginning to swirl in his chest, and then pops it open to see a letter and a rolled up paper inside. Dick slits open the letter, eagerly consuming the congratulations, memories, well wishes and news contained inside in the ringmaster’s flowing script. It finishes with, _though our non-magic friends think eighteen is the proper year, no one wanted to miss out in wishing you a happy birthday! We’re so proud of you, Boy Wonder, and I know they would be too. Things change, people move and grow, but if there’s one thing I’m sure of it’s that while you can a Grayson off the trapeze, you can’t take the trapeze out of a Grayson. You fly, my boy: keep reaching up for heights the rest of us only dream of._

 

_Jack Haly._

 

Blinking against the prickle in his eyes, Dick tips the roll of paper out and unfurls it to find an old poster of Haly’s Circus, featuring all six of the Flying Graysons underneath the brightly-lit Big Top, a design completed a few months before their deaths. Around the edges all the people he knew in the circus who remain have written birthday wishes and little memories, and Dick doesn’t realise a tear has escaped down his cheek until Alfred is offering him his handkerchief. 

 

“Ah man, I did enough of this earlier,” Dick jokes, voice a little wobbly as he wipes his eyes. Alfred pats his arm, smiling, and lifts the little glass Hawk has just handed around. 

 

“To family,” he says, and Bruce and Dick follow suit. 

 

They spend a few more minutes at the table, drinking slowly and talking about nothing, and when they at last rise and start gathering coats and scarves, it’s nearly nine-thirty. The bartenders wave them off with cheerful grins and cautions of ice on the path back to the castle. Alfred parts from them in the atrium, promising to meet them at King’s Cross next Friday for the end of term before taking the Floo network back to Wayne Manor, which is protected against Apparition by wards similar to Hogwarts’. 

 

“Come on,” Bruce says, “we’d better reach the castle before ten or Diana will have something unpleasant waiting.”

 

Dick nods, and they start back down the Main Street. He’s full of delicious food, the warmth of the Amaretto is suffusing through him, and the weight of his presents in his pockets buoys his heart till it feels like it’s floating about untethered in his ribcage. “Thank you,” he says again, smiling up at Bruce. “That was awesome.”

 

“My pleasure,” replies Bruce, just as quietly. They walk on through the night, lamps casting small pools of gold every here and there along the icy path, talking about Dinah Lance’s latest shake-up of the Wizengamot. 

 

“Conner said Lois has been covering some of her work in Brussels and that Dinah had just about had the International Confederation of Wizards eating out of the palm of –” Dick cuts himself off with a gasp as his heel meets a patch of ice. He feels his boot skid and for a millisecond he’s immobile with incredulousness: he never loses his balance. Bruce’s arm around his waist gives the lie to that belief, and Dick clutches at the stable fixture instinctively. When he regains his bearings, however, it feels like all his breath has been sucked from his body. His head spins with a very different dizziness as he takes stock of his position: he has his arms linked around Bruce’s neck, body pressing against his as Bruce holds him close with hands on his hips.

 

Dick makes himself raise his eyes as his heart skips a beat and bolts straight into a gallop, and oh god Bruce’s face is mere centimetres from his own, he can feel the warm puff of Bruce’s breath on his lips, can feel the warmth and strength of his body where he’s pressed against him. When Dick meets Bruce’s eyes, he’s lost.

 

Heat blazes between them and by the faint light cast by a nearby lamp he can see Bruce’s eyes are dark, pupils dilated, as his gaze flickers down to Dick’s parted lips.

 

Oh god, _oh god_ –

 

Dick tilts his chin up, utterly submerged in the surge of electricity coursing between them, and Bruce’s breath hitches as his fingers bite deliciously into the jut of Dick’s hips. They sway closer, deaf to anything but the rush of blood pounding in their ears, and Bruce’s lips are millimetres from Dick’s when the electricity zapping across his skin finally makes it to his brain and fires the requisite neurons. With a choked gasp he drops his head onto Bruce’s shoulder and rasps,

 

“June!” 

 

Bruce staggers slightly and recoils, hands flying off Dick’s hips as if he’s been burned by the heat surging through Dick’s body. He goes to wrench himself away, Dick can feel it in every muscle taut with tension under his hands, but Dick locks his elbows around Bruce’s neck, latching on to his collar with one hand and fisting the other desperately in the short hair at the nape of Bruce’s neck. 

 

“Don’t run from me, Bruce,” he commands. “Don’t you dare trivialise this or make excuses or rationalise it. Don’t leave me now. Please. Not again.” 

 

Bruce stills, and at his own words Dick suddenly sees sixth year in a whole new light. Does that mean...could it be that the jarring distance he’d sensed between them during that first miserable, confusing term had been a result of _this_ , whatever this is? Had Bruce been trying to come to terms with it? Bruce may be reactive when the situation changes, but he isn’t impulsive. He always likes having as much information on an event as possible. When confronted with any uncomfortable situation Bruce’s first tactic is always to withdraw and observe.

 

Something had happened in their second week back, he knows, because Bruce had been his usual self up until that point. After the second week, though, something had changed, and Bruce had been aloof, short-tempered even – especially – with him, and more terse than usual. He’d accepted two missions from Gordon even though he had a standing agreement not to take on Auror work while teaching at Hogwarts and left Dinah Lance back as their teacher for a two-week and a four-week period in September and October respectively. Even now Dick doesn’t know exactly what shifted Bruce off-balance, but whatever it was had shaken and disorientated him too: Bruce was distant in every interaction, and it hurt. God, even Julius had noticed, and he spends half his life in the grounds, preferring animals to people. 

 

If he lets Bruce walk away now, Dick knows beyond a shadow of a doubt another chasm will open between them. Last year the strange breach between them had been closed mid-November only when, and this really isn’t much of a surprise, Dick had been poisoned by a bite from a mutated Fanged Geranium after a bag of mooncalf dung fertiliser had reacted with Venomous Streeler slime and exploded over Greenhouse Six. The plants inside had doubled in size and become twice as deadly as a fine haze of soil had clouded the air; Dick had been the last one out after pulling several choking classmates from the greenhouse and consequently was the only prey the geranium had in sight. He had woken up a week later in the Hospital Wing to the sound of Wally cursing Bruce to hell and gone for daring to insinuate that Dick was in any way at fault, and if it hadn’t been for him at least four others would have been bitten and did Bruce know Magoria Hartshorne was deathly allergic to Streeler venom? If Dick hadn’t got her out of there she might have died, so lay off my best friend, Mr ‘I’ll move to Hogwarts to make sure nothing happens to Dick’ since you sure as hell weren’t here when this happened! 

 

A chastened Bruce had sat beside Dick’s bedside later that day, apologised for being away, and produced a thermos of Alfred’s coveted chicken and potato soup. Things had gone back to normal after that, but Dick has no wish to injure himself again just to prompt a reconciliation between them.

 

“Please,” he whispers again. 

 

Bruce lifts a hand to press it briefly to Dick’s back. It’s the best – and only – acknowledgement he can get that Bruce doesn’t intend to run away, and Dick coaxes his arms into letting go. When he does, Bruce almost wrenches himself away and comes to a jerky stop a few steps down the path with his fists by his side and head tucked down against his chest, breath clouding the air in front of him.

 

Dick watches him. He knows Bruce well enough to know he needs space to get his head around things and reset whatever he feels he needs to, but he also knows Bruce well enough to know how easily guilt and self-recrimination come to him. He gives Bruce one minute by his brand new watch, and then approaches him, gripping Bruce’s shoulder but remaining a little behind, out of his peripheral vision.

 

Under his hand, Bruce is so tense he’s almost shuddering with conflicting emotion, but Dick just holds on. His first ever lesson in life was to reach out for the bar or the hands waiting at the other end and never let go, and he’s not going to start now. “Talk to me, Bruce.”

 

The man shakes his head. “I shouldn’t –”

 

“Shouldn’t what? Be happy? Make me happy?”

 

Bruce turns his head away, angling his body to follow suit, but Dick still doesn’t let go. “You are far too young, Dick; god, you’re my _ward_ , what kind of man –”

 

“I _was_ your ward,” Dick corrects him, “relationships change all the time! It’s not unlikely, nor is it wrong. I’ve been away at Hogwarts for most of your guardianship, and it took me till a few months ago to even believe I had a miniscule chance of you feeling the same way. I’m seventeen now, an adult, and you of all people, Bruce, know I haven’t been a child for years. Don’t you dare tell me I’m too young to know what I want after you let me hunt Dark Wizards when I was _ten_.”

 

The powerful shoulder under his hand shifts and the muscles tense. “I can’t,” Bruce whispers, weary now.

 

“I know,” Dick breathes, heartened that Bruce didn’t say _I don’t want_. “I’m still your student. June, promise me we’ll talk in June.”

 

He lets go, and Bruce takes one step away, then two, and Dick can feel his heart plummet. He doesn’t want to believe he’s blown it, can’t believe it, won’t; he clenches his fists by his side to stop himself from reaching out, aching to comfort Bruce and wrap himself around him as the man tortures himself with his morals. The cloud of breath in front of Bruce shimmers in the lamplight and Dick finds himself watching it mindlessly, contemplating the ebb and flow. When Bruce does turn around again the movement startles him.

 

“I don’t mean to trivialise it, Dick, but it’s not…” Again, words fail him, and Bruce glances away, anger darting across his face as his jaw clenches.

 

“It’s not appropriate?” Dick guesses, “It’s not going to be easy? Bullshit to the first, I know to the second. If I hadn’t…” this time Dick is the one to trail off; he gathers his words and tries again. “If it hadn’t been sprung on us, would you have said anything?”

 

“No.”

 

Dick scrubs a hand over his face at the implacable note in Bruce’s voice, all his old uncertainties and insecurities raising their heads. Maybe Bruce notices, because he elaborates a moment later, sounding like the words are being dragged from him.

 

“I would never impose. Dick, I have such power over you, I can’t – I won’t – be the one to make the first move.”

 

A tiny flame of relief warms Dick’s chest, because he knew that that scruple was going to come up eventually. “Okay. I understand that, which is why I’ll be bringing this back up in June.”

 

Bruce smiles slightly, and an expression meaning mirth shouldn’t look like it hurts him so much. “I won’t hold you to it. June is still six months away. You don’t owe me anything.”

 

Dick rolls his eyes and takes a cautious step forward. “ _I know_. Believe me, I’ve been tossing this around in my head so often I gave myself a migraine, so don’t think I haven’t thought this through. I’ll talk to you again about this in June.”

 

“Alright,” Bruce accedes. “And…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make your birthday uncomfortable.”

 

Another step, and Dick reaches Bruce’s side. “You didn’t. It’s still been the best day I could have asked for.” He looks up, and they can finally meet each other’s eyes again. “Let’s go, Professor Prince is waiting,” he says quietly, and Bruce doesn’t resist either the hand on his arm or the gentle tug Dick gives him. 

 

They walk in silence for a minute, the glowing windows of the castle growing larger as the approach the gate, and then Dick says, “So how about that architecture, huh?”

 

As segues go, it’s not one of his best, but the lameness of his enquiry is enough to startle a laugh out of Bruce, which evaporates most of the tension simmering between them. “I didn’t know you wanted gargoyles, Dick.”

 

“Well, it is a magical castle doubling as a school and we have plenty of suits of armour: I don’t see why a gargoyle or two is too much to ask for.” 

 

This banter takes them up the stairs, through the castle and to Bruce’s study, where Dick points out several lintels which in his opinion would be greatly improved by the addition of a perching stone creatures.

 

“I’ll be sure to forward your interior decorating advice to Headmistress Prince,” Bruce remarks dryly, unwinding his scarf in the warmth of the castle. Dick laughs as he gathers up his presents. He tucks the Quidditch tickets into his pocket, signs the few forms Bruce needs him to, makes sure he has everything, and then…can’t make up his mind whether to say something else and ends up dithering by the door.

 

The moment stretches out with the two of them hesitating a few paces away from each other, and just when Dick is prepared to retreat to bed, Bruce comes to some sort of conclusion and reaches out to rest a hand on his shoulder. “Good night, Dick,” he says, eyes meeting Dick’s once more, “happy birthday.”

 

“Thank you, Bruce,” Dick says past the lump in his throat, “good night.”

 

Bruce releases him and Dick heads up to Ravenclaw Tower, stopping for only ten minutes in the Room of Requirement, which he considers a very modest amount. The Room obligingly offers him a small sitting room with a deep armchair he can fling himself into, and Dick proceeds to do just that. He then freaks out, yells into a pillow, flails about with his hands in his hair, and eventually tries to calm himself down and make plans for the rest of the school year with this new electricity simmering in his body before continuing to make his way up to his dorm. 

 

* * *

 

When Dick wakes up the next morning, he’s torn between burrowing even further under his warm cocoon of covers and getting up to work out in the gym the Room of Requirement can turn into upon request. Just the thought of sparring with Bruce this morning, all heaving breaths and warm muscles, sends heat coursing through him, and soon he has to redirect his thoughts before he has a problem that can’t easily be taken care of in a dorm shared with four other people. Eventually, though, the jittery energy in Dick’s limbs outweighs his desire to stay curled up in bed, and he tosses back his blankets before he can change his mind. Half of the time he doesn’t spar with Bruce anyway, choosing instead to work out on the parallel bars or rings he asks the Room to provide. 

 

He does so this morning, pushing himself in a variation of his old circus warmup, revelling in the stretch and burn of exertion in his muscles. Half an hour in, he hears a soft, “Keep your elbows locked, Dick, you’re letting your biceps take too much of the strain,” as Bruce begins his own workout with some of the barbells on the other side of the room. Dick grunts in acknowledgement, and though a rush of giddiness tries to flutter about in his stomach, the ache in his shoulders as he balances in a perfect handstand has most of his attention. 

 

“Good,” Bruce says, and they finish the rest of their respective workouts in silence apart from one or two comments on form.

 

It’s a pattern into which the rest of the week falls: in class there’s no difference, because Bruce is a professional and Dick values his DADA mark too much to let anything affect it, but otherwise they’re quiet and restrained. Dick stops by Bruce’s office once to ask for guidance on essays and a cup of tea to help with a headache, but he doesn’t stay long and Bruce doesn’t ask him to. It’s not uncomfortable _per se_ , and they’re not fighting, which is what Wally immediately assumes when Dick stays in Ravenclaw Tower on Wednesday to study; it’s more that they both know there’s electricity crackling between them that could discharge and blow all the fuses if they get too close to each other, and it’s not something either is willing to risk just yet.

 

Thankfully there’s only a week till Christmas break, and on Friday Dick packs up his trunk, says goodbye to Zatanna, Karen, Mal, Raquel and Gregorian, who are staying at Hogwarts for the holidays, and joins Wally, Artemis, Kaldur, Barbara, Maxwell, Megan and Conner in the Entrance Hall where they’re waiting for the carriages to take them to the train station. 

 

“Julius’s going to be late,” remarks Maxwell, glancing at his wristwatch. Never averse to showing off his pride and joy, Dick flicks open his own, the silver chain attached securely to a belt loop.

 

“He’s still got five minutes,” he says, closing his watch and running a thumb over the lid before returning it to his pocket.

 

Julius ends up running for the carriage, and they try not to laugh too hard at him.

 

“You still coming over for Boxing Day leftovers?” Wally asks as they settle into their compartment. 

 

“What do you mean, leftovers?” Dick snickers, “with how much you and Bart eat I don’t think there’ll be anything left over!”

 

“What? I –”

 

“Have a fast metabolism,” they chant, and Wally huffs in mock outrage. 

 

“See if I invite you over again,” he says. 

 

“You know I’ll be there, Walls,” Dick says. “If anyone’s free after Christmas they’re welcome to come over, Alfred loves listening to compliments on his hot chocolate and we have the orchard for a few mock Quidditch games if it’s not snowing too hard.”

 

In fact, Dick spends very little time at the manor over the break. He, Alfred and Bruce always spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day together, eating an enormous amount of delicious food, reading, playing board games, opening presents, and even playing in the snow if Dick begs hard enough, but what with his extra study, the marking Bruce has to do, receiving visits from Clark and Lois, Barry and Iris, Jim Gordon, Lucius Fox and many of Dick’s friends and visiting them in turn, he and Bruce don’t have a lot of time to spend together. He does have to admit the new tension between Bruce and himself also plays a part: it sits like a rip tide under seemingly calm waters, and there’s a hint of something yearning, something _hungry_ in Bruce’s gaze now when he looks at Dick when he thinks Dick doesn’t notice that both thrills and terrifies Dick in equal measure. 

 

Because he could, Dick knows, he could flirt and charm and laugh and glance from under eyelashes and splay his legs just this side of decent and stretch until his shirt rides up; he could keep that up until he overrode Bruce’s objections, broke his control, shattered his good intentions. That’s what tortures Dick the most every time he senses Bruce’s eyes on him, lingering far too long for it to be anything innocent. He could have Bruce by the end of the goddamn week if he wanted to.

 

Lying in bed the night before New Year’s Eve, thinking of the six months stretching out ahead of him when all he wants is Bruce beside him in the bed, Dick fists his fingers in sheets and blankets and grinds his teeth in the dark solitude of his room because the simple fact is that it’s _because_ he could have Bruce if he wanted to that he can’t.

 

He can’t do any of the things that his hormones and heart are telling him to do, because Bruce wouldn’t fight him, would let him, and would then regret it, would possibly even resent Dick – and rightfully – when it came to light that they had become involved while Dick was still a student at the school where Bruce was a teacher. He would blame himself in the greatest fit of self-loathing seen since the last failed kidnapping, attempted when he’d left Dick at an inn in Florence to meet with an informant in one of the city’s brothels. It would be a darkness even Dick probably wouldn’t be able to pull him out of. So he can’t. Dick can’t because he could, and it’s going around and around inside his head until he drops into an exhausted, restless sleep, and even then his dreams are dogged with wanting.

It’s lonely, keeping his distance, but even the slightest, most innocent brush of Bruce’s skin against his makes Dick feel like he’s being struck by lightning while diving another hundred feet on his broom. The night before they return to Hogwarts, however, Dick slips into Bruce’s study where he’s reading in the couch before the fire and settles down next to him. 

 

“Alfred thinks we’re fighting,” he says softly, just audible over the pop and crackle of the flames. 

 

“Does he?” Bruce asks, glancing at Dick over the top of his book. 

 

“Yeah. He asked me if there was some inconvenience in the study that he wasn’t aware of, since I’ve been studying in my room most of the time we’ve been home.”

 

“Oh,” is all Bruce says, but Dick can see he’s not reading anymore. A few moments later he’s proved correct when Bruce lowers his book slightly and asks, strangely tentative for a man of his intimidating reputation, “Are we?”

 

“No,” Dick answers. “Well, I’m not.” He pulls his socked feet up onto the cushions and wiggles his toes in silent request. Bruce shifts his weight slightly so Dick can tuck his toes under Bruce’s thigh, and that is Bruce’s answer too. Dick hasn’t realised how much he’s missed just sitting with Bruce until he’d stopped. 

 

Bruce rests his hand lightly on Dick’s ankle. “Dick...no matter what happens, you know you always have a home here. It’s not conditional upon anything, understand?”

 

“Of course I do,” he says, curling forward to rest his own hand on Bruce’s wrist. He knows what kind of rumours they will face if – when – they decide to pursue a romantic relationship. “Same here. I mean, we’re family, Bruce. That won’t – nothing will change that. Right?”

 

Bruce nods, glancing at him and then away as soon as he catches Dick’s eye. He’s still stroking Dick’s ankle, though whether he’s consciously aware of that is another matter, but it’s warm and comfortable here and Dick doesn’t want any hint of tension or discordant notes of awkwardness to pervade their little space. He knows what a chaotic whirlwind the next two terms will be, can already feel the stress beginning to settle in his joints the way anxiety over new trapeze routines used to, and craves nothing more than a few more peaceful hours here at home, in front of the fire with cocoa on the table nearby and Bruce beside him. 

 


	8. Chapter 8

Those few tranquil hours seem a treasure lost to antiquity only archaeologists can rediscover by the next evening. Dick collapses face down on his bed and groans in relief, feeling tension finally start to leech out of his muscles and bones.

 

An owl from Lucius had arrived a few minutes before Alfred brought the car around to take Dick to King’s Cross and its missive had delayed them for nearly ten minutes while Alfred unearthed the file Lucius suddenly needed a few days before Bruce was due to drop it off at Wayne Enterprises. Consequently Dick had arrived at the station at ten fifty-six, flung himself onto the train with only a brief goodbye to Alfred and strode along the length of the Hogwarts Express only to find his friends in one of the last carriages. Then, after a few hours of general good humour and chatter about the Christmas holiday, Wally and Zatanna had started up their debate about Divination again which somehow evolved into a fierce argument about the worth of Muggle fortune-tellers and the Salem Witch Trials.

 

With half the carriage simmering with anger and ignoring each other and the other trying to smooth over the awkward silence by talking about the assignments they had to do over the break, which was anything but a relaxing topic of conversation, Dick had wedged himself further into the corner, pulled his feet up on the seat and pulled out one of the new books Alfred had given him. 

 

“If Jordan gives us something abstract tomorrow,” Wally growls, undressing like his clothes have personally offended him and tossing them heedlessly into his trunk, “I’m gonna...I’m gonna, I dunno, do something really unpleasant.”

 

“I hear you,” Dick mumbles, finally turning over so he can breathe. “I’ll cover for you.”

 

It turns out that Professor Jordan is the sadist they all secretly knew him to be when he sets them a four-week project of enchanting little ships to fly through a levitating obstacle course he will create at the end of the month. Jordan blithely ignores at least eight death-glares levelled his way as he draws a schematic of what the course will look like on the blackboard, and Dick, partnered with Amelia instead of Kaldur like usual since Jordan insisted they switch up their groups this time, finds himself trying not to strangle the timid girl in a surge of temper when she mispronounces the steering spell they learnt in _third year_ for the fourth time. 

 

Nobody comments on the empty packet of dung bombs that Wally surreptitiously drops into a waste basket three floors away, and even the Head Boy and Girl carefully look in the other direction as Dick Vanishes the evidence. 

 

It’s as good an indication as any that these two terms are going to be absolutely hellish. Dick’s marks don’t drop – he’s far too proud and hardworking for that; he make sure they don’t go anywhere but _up_  – but he finds himself working even longer hours along with the rest of his cohort, and on occasion begging Professor Nelson or Professor Kord to sign a slip to allow him into the Restricted Section of the library. Bruce would willingly do the same, but the librarian gets suspicious when Dick has more than three in a row signed by Professor Wayne and tends to subject him to a cross-examination worthy of the Auror Office.

 

To Dick’s dismay, he also has to decrease his workout and sparring sessions with Bruce to three times a week instead of six when Alexa Jun almost hexes him for missing two Quidditch practises in a row, and by the time Valentine’s Day rolls around he’s got three different assignments cluttering up his head and has so little patience for the crepe hearts flittering down from the ceiling into his tea he’s seriously contemplating mass homicide.

 

“Why the long face – Merlin!” Wally leaps back involuntarily at the glare Dick directs at him, retracting the hand he’d just been about to lay on Dick’s shoulder like he’s afraid it’s about to be bitten off. Dick makes no promises. “What’s with you? Yes, it’s a commercialisation of a nondescript little festival designed to impress general shame and futility upon single people, and yes, love should be shared all year round, but hey, it’s not so bad! It’s an excuse to eat a shedload of chocolate, what could be so bad about that?”

 

“It’s nothing, Wally.” Dick just does not have enough fucks to spare for this, even though he knows it’s not his best friend’s fault he’s in such a foul temper. Valentine’s Day itself doesn’t bother him and it’s not really the reason he’s gritting his teeth so hard his jaw starts to ache – he’s just _tired_. He’s tired from staying up late and getting up early, he’s tired of Alexa swearing at them all during training even though Ravenclaw won their last game against Hufflepuff by a healthy margin, he’s tired of keeping his feelings wrapped up and chained down, heart bound by bars of bone, when sometimes all Dick wants after hours in the library where the words have started to blur before his eyes is to curl up in Bruce’s body and breathe in his cologne and know, without a fraction of a doubt, he’s safe within Bruce’s arms.

 

He can hardly tell Wally the shadows under his eyes aren’t due exclusively to bad dreams but to a combination of nightmares and the kind of dream that offers just a glimpse of happiness, of joy and pleasure and _lovelovelove_ , before waking him up hard and alone. 

 

Artemis, who, after three years of dating Wally, has grown accustomed to the usual adoration he bestows daily upon her spiking into the occasional extravagant outburst, is wearing a rather nice, if large, flower corsage pinned to her robes and an unimpressed look as she sits down next to Dick. “Yeah, it’s totally ‘nothing’,” she even does air quotes, and Dick glares at her, “in fact, it’s so totally nothing you’re practically a walking storm cloud, and I thought Conner was the king of brooding bad temper.”

 

Conner is at that moment canoodling with Megan over at the Gryffindor table, looking so giddily happy it’s amazing he hasn’t floated up to the ceiling like a balloon. 

 

“Well, not now, obviously,” Artemis says, flicking her hair over her shoulder. “You’ve probably stolen his thunder.”

 

“It’s nothing, Artemis. I’m fine, just tired. I was up till midnight working on my Ancient Runes.”

 

“Did you actually need to, or were you adding in a whole lot of superfluous extra in-depth research that Nelson will probably ignore since he’s already planning to give you 100%?” 

 

Dick shoves his plate away, appetite gone, and Artemis rolls her eyes. “Listen, princess, if you work yourself into the ground before N.E.W.Ts everything you’ve done so far is pretty much null and void. Lighten up, a few bad poems and some stupid pink hearts aren’t going to kill you.”

 

As much as he appreciates Artemis’ tough love, Dick doesn’t have time for it. “Thanks, Art,” he says instead, “see you after lunch.” He stands, picks up his bag, and strides down the Hall to the High Table. 

 

“Can I borrow _History of Judicial Magic_ by al-Shāfi‘ī tonight –” Dick begins to ask as he reaches Bruce, only to stop when Bruce flicks the card in his hand closed with a deliberate sort of casualness that immediately rouses Dick’s suspicion. He glances at it, and at the envelope sitting by Bruce’s goblet, and feels his heart drop so fast it makes him ill. The paper is purple and lightly scented, the handwriting flowing and embellished – Dick recognises it immediately. Selina Kyle. “Never mind,” he says, proud in a detached sort of way that his voice is completely level, and turns on his heel, ignoring his name in Bruce’s voice. If he can ignore that, maybe he can ignore the faint guilt in Bruce’s face too, a far more damning admission than the familiarity of his first name at the teachers’ table.   

 

Dick lets no hint of his turmoil show but the lower years scatter in front of him all the same, wary of any seventh year with that stony expression on their face. He reaches the marble staircase and begins to climb, third floor, fourth floor, fifth floor...Dick leans against the wall outside his Arithmancy classroom and tries to calm his breathing. He’s being an idiot, he’s overreacting like a child denied its treat, he has no claim on Bruce and Bruce doesn’t owe him anything. The memory of his birthday unfurls in Dick’s mind: there was nothing but a tacit agreement to postpone further discussion till June.

 

He draws in two short sharp breaths, and then whirls around and drives his fist as hard as he can into the tapestry covering the wall beside him. When did he turn into such a goddamn wilting _flower_? He knows Bruce feels something for him, knows objectively that Selina was a fling years ago and that Bruce has been careful to keep his distance from the small-time criminal since he’s been at Hogwarts – Dick’s never been one to let go of something that he wants without a fight, and he’s certainly never given up just because his first plan didn’t survive the first skirmish.  

 

“Get a fucking grip,” he snarls to himself, shaking out the ache in his fist and smacking his palms against his cheeks. 

 

“Dick?” 

 

He jerks his head up to see Kaldur approaching, concerned frown wrinkling his forehead. “What ails you, my friend?” he asks when he reaches Dick, frown deepening when he sees the faint redness beginning to appear in Dick’s knuckles. 

 

“Nothing, Kaldur. Just shaking out the cobwebs.” He grins reassuringly at the other man and straightens out his robes, picking bits of confetti out of his hair. Kaldur doesn’t reply, and when Dick glances up he sees his friend sweeping a measuring look over him, grey eyes contemplative. “What?”

 

Kaldur meets his gaze and then quickly scours the corridor for any potential eavesdroppers. Dick feels the hair on the back of his neck start to prickle. 

 

“We are all tired, I know,” Kaldur begins once he’s sure no one is listening, settling next to Dick against the wall, “and I know the stress of the year is amplified by the close quarters in which we live: any tension felt by our peers transfers easily by continued association. You are taking more subjects than most, Dick, and have your Quidditch and prefect duties on top of that, but I think that something else is affecting you.” Kaldur turns so he’s facing Dick, and as he meets the Head Boy’s steady, sure gaze Dick feels a shiver of foreboding slip down his spine. “In fact, I might say that I know something else is affecting you.”

 

“If you’re talking about Quidditch, I’m fine. I just need to hit Alexa with a Cheering Charm when she’s not looking.” Dick shoots a cocky grin at Kaldur, who just looks at him with patience honed over seven years of dealing with sass.

 

“That is not quite what I meant,” Kaldur says. “I know you have a heavy workload along with your Quidditch duties, but I am sure you would find it easier to bear if you didn’t have something else weighing down your heart.”

 

Dick stares at him, frozen in place, and something that feels an awful lot like fear blooms like ice in his stomach. “You know,” he says quietly, too flat to be a question.

 

“I do,” Kaldur replies. “And I hope you will forgive my impertinence, but I want you to know that I support you both entirely. Love is love, Dick, no matter what the uninformed of the world may choose to think. And as for it being inappropriate, the mere fact you are miserable on Valentine’s Day indicates nothing has yet happened between you, and thus that nothing happened while you were still a minor.”

 

Dick gapes at him, speechless, and then brings his hand up to rub his forehead, an incredulous little chuckle escaping. “Thanks, Kaldur,” he says, the strange rollercoaster of emotion finally settling. “How did you know? Have I...been obvious? Does anyone else know?” 

 

“No, I do not believe anyone else knows. As for how...” Kaldur trails off and quirks a self-deprecating grin at Dick. “Am I not the resident expert in silent, unrequited regard? Rest assured, you have not been obvious. I doubt many others would have seen the way you look at him when you think no one else will notice.”

 

“Kaldur...” Dick says, pushing away his self-absorption as he reaches out to clasp his friend’s shoulder in turn.

 

“You have no need to worry, I am alright. I won’t deny the pain I felt when Tula chose Garth over me last year, but the ocean waits for no man and each wave changes the shape of the shore upon which it beats.”

 

“You have an uncanny gift for combining wisdom with a poetic turn of phrase,” Dick grins. Kaldur neither needs nor wants any pity. He's more than just a teenage break-up, and Dick may have been distracted at breakfast this morning but he's not blind: there's a very pretty handmade silver Valentine's card in Kaldur's bag which brought a shy smile to his face when he found it beside his plate. Dick has no intention of meddling - out of all of them, Kaldur deserves something good of his own choosing.

 

“Thank you,” Kaldur says dryly. “But if I may go back to the matter at hand, I wished to assure you that I do not mean to pry, or to interfere in something that is none of my business. You know as well as I the speed at which gossip travels – you are right to be cautious. I just came up here to make sure you were well.”

 

Dick grimaces. “It’s nothing. I just have an Astronomy chart due tonight along with our Transfiguration essay, and a Potions ingredient list to submit to Roquette before Friday.”

 

“If you’re sure,” Kaldur says as the bell begins to ring. 

 

“Absolutely,” Dick nods, “You’d better get to class, don’t you have Care of Magical Creatures out by the Forest?”

 

“I do, yes. I shall see you at lunch, then.” 

 

“See you lunch,” Dick says, “and Kaldur...thanks.”

 

The Head Boy smiles and lifts a hand as he walks off down the corridor. Dick leans back against the wall and shakes his head to himself, grinning wryly. So much for his skills of concealment. He’ll have to do better next time, but for the moment Dick lets himself relax. He’s not going to let that cat burglar get her claws into Bruce, nor is he going to let fear guide his actions: he's going to do whatever it takes to make Bruce see that they belong together. 

 

“Right,” he mutters to himself, checking his watch for the time and beginning to pull his Arithmancy books from his satchel as the corridors slowly begin to fill with students, “pull yourself together.”

 

By the time Karen and Barbara join him, Dick has recovered his equanimity and regained his even temper. Arithmancy is also an excellent cure for absent-minded distress: there’s nothing quite like calculating the numbers in the wrong order and then having to start over from scratch. By the time evening rolls around Dick has dismissed all the half-formed, lurking fears that he can’t do anything about anyway, and heads off to Bruce’s classroom where he heard through the grapevine the professor is supervising a detention before heading to the library.

 

“Enter,” Bruce commands on the heels of Dick’s knock, and looks up from where he’s sitting at his desk, glaring direfully at the three boys chipping chewing gum of the button of the desks and coating the old wood with a fresh layer of varnish. 

 

“Sorry to disturb you, professor,” Dick says, stepping into the classroom. Somehow he’s not surprised to see Sorchese here, though he’s fairly sure it can’t still be about the Quidditch match in December. “I was wondering if I could borrow _History of Judicial Magic_. I’m sorry I didn’t get it this morning,” he adds, steadily meeting Bruce’s gaze once he reaches the desk at the front of the room, “I was a little bit all over the place.”

 

Bruce stands and begins scanning the bookshelves on either side of the blackboard. “Certainly. Here it is,” he says, pulling the thick green-covered tome from the shelf. “I was caught up in some meaningless correspondence this morning, otherwise I would have given to it you sooner.”

 

“Thank you,” he says, smiling, and if his fingers graze Bruce’s on the spine of the book, well, his back is to the classroom and no-one has to know how much of spark leaps between them.

 

“Let me know if you want to schedule a meeting to discuss your end-of-term essay,” is all Bruce says, as though he doesn’t know that Dick knows his eyes had flickered every-so-briefly down to Dick’s lips.

 

“I will.” Dick can’t find an appropriate reason to linger – somehow he doesn’t think yanking his professor over the desk by his lapels and snogging him under the excuse of it being Valentine’s Day will quite cut it – and settles for a last grin and a wave as he leaves the classroom. 

 

Now that Dick’s cleared his head and shaken himself back together, the rest of the term passes by without major incident. Easter itself falls on the last week of March, and Dick’s friends, like the shameless vultures they are, mob him that morning when Etraxsus and the Wayne house owl Pheidippides arrive bearing a big box filled with massive chocolate Easter eggs: one each courtesy of Alfred Pennyworth, greatest butler in the history of the world.

 

A week of holidays follows Easter itself, and it’s the first break that Dick hasn’t gone home for; he stares at Alfred’s card and feels a twinge. The pile of books and rolls of parchment upstairs are reason enough he can’t afford to leave Hogwarts seven weeks before N.E.W.Ts, and so he shrugs and devours most of his Easter egg that night researching the law, precedents and restrictions surrounding Class-B Tradeable Materials, in particular the Erumpent horn, for Care of Magical Creatures. It’s labelled as a holiday in the school’s calendar, but when Dick gets back to Ravenclaw Common Room at three in the morning to find Maxwell, Gregorian, Barbara, Karen and Grace also still awake and studying, he’s more inclined to think of it as purgatory. 

 

The fifth years have their O.W.Ls coming up at the same time as the seventh years’ N.E.W.Ts, and soon enough the tables are littered with students propping books up in front of them against their goblets, practicing wave movements with their cutlery, scribbling frantically at essays due that day while cramming toast into their mouths and ignoring the scatter of crumbs in ink. The tension and stress is steadily mounting, transferring between the students like lightning. Dick knows he’s on track with his study, knows he’s been doing well over the course of the year; he should realistically face few issues with the upcoming N.E.W.Ts and yet the close quarters of the dormitories and the Common Room magnify the collective stress until Dick can’t help but fight down the second-hand anxiety when he sees Wally flicking frantically through his Muggle Studies book, or Zatanna mumbling counter-curses under her breath, or Julius rote-learning his declensions before bed every night.

 

Though he feels more centred now, less inclined to snap in a surge of temper, Dick’s appetite drops and the jitters of anticipation set in. Alfred and Bruce used to wonder if he’d ever be able to sit still but eventually he’d picked up the knack of silence and stillness on stakeouts with Bruce, and applied them to study. Only when Dick’s tense with stress do his old habits come back, and he finds it soothing to have something moving, whether it’s a foot swinging or tapping, fingers flicking or rapping.

 

Needless to say, he’s the only one to find comfort in it: on a memorable occasion in fifth year Karen smacked a bestiary tome onto his hand to stop his tapping and gave Dick a lovely array of yellow and purple bruises for the next few days. He tries not to make any noise now, but swings his foot in rhythmic sweeps under the desk as he wrangles with the pluperfect of ‘I write’ in eighth century medieval Greek. 

 

His prefect duties help a little – they have rosters of patrol in the evening till midnight to ensure the younger students aren’t breaking their ten o’clock curfew, and Dick finds the walk through quiet, dark corridors soothing – and Quidditch remains an excellent outlet for all his energy. The Quidditch Cup match is scheduled for early May, and after Ravenclaw narrowly beats Slytherin again in the middle of April, Sorchese very conspicuously playing by the rules whenever he gets within ten feet of Dick, a place is secured in the finals. Alexa awaits the outcome of the Gryffindor/Hufflepuff match a week later with her fingernails bitten down to the quick, and immediately starts devising strategies when Gryffindor emerge victorious. Ravenclaw is just in the lead in the competition’s points tally but Gryffindor is still close enough that if they win by a large margin on Saturday, or even lose by less than thirty points, Ravenclaw will lose the Cup. 

 

“I want you in the thick of the game, Grayson,” Alexa keeps saying, “Gryffindor has a very tight Chaser formation but they’re not used to the Seeker hanging around; they factor in the other Chasers and ignore everyone else. You need to be in the middle like a fly, eyes everywhere and out of a Bludger’s path but close enough that Gryffindor wants to swat you out of their face, you hear me?”

 

“Alexa,” Dick eventually sighs the night before the game, “I hear you. I’ve heard you for the last week. If you don’t get out of my face, I’ll swat you too, okay?”

 

She flicks him the bird but thankfully leaves him in peace, and Dick turns back to his Potions revision with Wally.

 

“Are you sure Quidditch is a good idea?” Wally asks quietly once Alexa’s stalked off to the girls’ dormitory. “I mean, N.E.W.Ts are next month, Dick, are you sure you don’t want to pull out and let Vennick play Seeker again as a sub?”

 

Dick stares uncomprehendingly at him. “Let a sub play in the Quidditch Cup match?” He repeats dumbly. “Are you nuts?”

 

Wally smacks him with the Potions book. “Hey, you don’t have the best track record when it comes to Quidditch matches before important tests.”

 

“That happened once in fourth year, and Professor Hol let me make up my Astronomy test a week later. Listen, Walls, thanks for your concern, but if I don’t fly tomorrow I’ll go out of my mind. I need the exercise, I need the wind and speed and adrenaline. I’ll have my wand on me, and I absolutely promise to take no unnecessary risks, but I am flying. N.E.W.Ts are a whole month away.”

 

“Suit yourself,” Wally sighs. “Anyway, I suppose I’m glad you’re playing. That Quidditch Cup is ours!”

 

“Glad to see you’re taking your House duty seriously,” Dick says, grinning. “Artemis would never go for Ravenclaw over Gryffindor even if you were playing.”

 

“Don’t I know it,” Wally huffs. “We have a limit on five boasts in the forty-eight hours after a game, otherwise it starts getting a little homicidal.”

 

* * *

 

The stadium the next afternoon is awash with red and blue, most of the school turning out to take advantage of late May’s clear blue skies and warm sun. Dick spends a few moments reassuring the team in the changing rooms while Alexa is checking the pitch condition. She’s a very good captain, dedicated, tactical and hardworking, but occasionally she forgets her teammates are people who need a reminder now and then that they know what they’re doing and they’re good at what they do. Sarah Sandston beams at him when Dick makes his way over to her, and he grins in return.

 

“You’ve got the rest of the team around you, alright? Don’t worry out there, just fly.”

 

Alexa calls them in for one last huddle and then leads the way out onto the pitch. They’re met with a deafening wall of noise, and the enthusiastic atmosphere ramps up the anticipation in Dick’s stomach another notch – Merlin, he hasn’t had actual nail-biting, stomach-swooping, finger-trembling nerves playing Quidditch for at least two years, if not more. Slytherin has a long tradition of siding against Gryffindor but most Hufflepuffs consider Ravenclaw too esoteric for their tastes, so the crowd in the stands is split fairly evenly between the two colours: blue dominates one end, bronze eagles flying proudly, and red conquers the other, golden lions bright in the sunshine.

 

Dick winks at Artemis and Raquel as the captains shake hands, and they roll their eyes at him.

 

Artemis is one of the most accurate Chasers the Gryffindor team has had in a decade, though it took her a while to play nice with her two Chaser teammates, and Raquel is an excellent Beater. In their third and fourth years she badgered Conner constantly about trying out for Beater too; Conner refused ostensibly because his penchant for violence clashed with his protective instincts when he realised it would mean hitting Bludgers at opposing team players like Dick and Megan, but Dick used to muse to Bruce that it had something to do with Clark’s legacy as Seeker and the bad blood – patched up but still liable to be mentioned in sibling arguments – between them after an eight-year-old Conner stole, flew and crashed seventeen-year-old Clark’s Cleansweep 5 one summer. 

 

Madame Hol takes a moment to inspect the teams and brief them on the conditions, and then gestures for them to mount their brooms. One short sharp blast of the whistle later, and fourteen brooms soar into the air as the balls are released. Mal is commentating as usual, and narrates Ravenclaw’s progress down the pitch after Sarah seizes the Quaffle. The Snitch disappears behind Gryffindor’s Beater as he tries to block Sarah’s approach, and Dick zooms off to do a lap, eyes peeled. The Gryffindor Seeker is doing the same thing from the other direction, clearly intent of matching Dick’s movements as they soar above the game where Alexa is taking the first shot at the goal hoops, but he’s about to be seriously confused.

 

After Ravenclaw’s first goal Dick swoops down to crisscross the pitch near the ground, checking for the Snitch down here, but as soon as Ramage whacks a Bludger away from Alexa and the bad-tempered ball knocks the Quaffle out of the Gryffindor Chaser’s hand he rockets up to join the formation. The three Ravenclaw Chasers tear down the pitch, Dick in the middle ducking and soaring and trying to throw off Gryffindor’s concentration even though as Seeker he doesn’t touch the Quaffle. Artemis cuts through a gap and tries to snatch the ball but sees a fourth player in the formation and veers aside in confusion as Dick darts forward, clearing the way for Malik to feint left in front of the Keeper and score through the left hoop. The stands go wild as Dick pulls away to continue his hunt for the Snitch, though not before he hears Artemis hiss, “Dick!”

 

Somehow he’s fairly sure she’s not calling his name.

 

“Unique use of Ravenclaw Seeker Grayson,” Mal is saying through his megaphone, “Gryffindor Chasers fly in close quarters and excel in blocking the other team – clearly Ravenclaw Captain Jun has taken this into account to work out this new strategy. Ravenclaw lead 20-0, but it could be risky if Grayson misses the opportunity to search for the Snitch.”

 

Mal’s right, which is why Dick only joins the Chasers on unexpected occasions when Gryffindor is flanking the formation too closely for Ravenclaw to use their long overarm passes. The game advances quickly, with Ravenclaw pulling ahead to 40-10 in the first ten minutes until the Gryffindor Keeper finally dives into a spectacular save and gets the Quaffle into scarlet possession. From there Gryffindor swiftly score thirty points and the next play down the pitch is a blur of red and blue as the Chasers scrabble tooth and nail for the Quaffle.

 

Dick keeps well clear of that scrum, especially when the Beaters join in, and urges the Solarflare into a burst of speed as he flies around the circumference of the pitch. The Gryffindor Seeker is flying along the longitude of the pitch above the action, and Dick keeps an eye on him as he curves around the Ravenclaw end – and promptly dismisses all thought from his mind as he catches sight of a glint of gold from in the thick of the play.

 

Rocketing forward, Dick ducks under the pack of Ravenclaw Chasers, hearing Alexa shouting at him to clear off but ignoring her, and swerves around Ramage and his bat. Bringing the Solarflare into another hairpin turn, he throws himself flat against the handle of his broom as he hears a Bludger pass by scant inches above his head and then angles himself almost vertically upwards to tear through the middle of the Gryffindor Chasers. They scatter, swearing at him, and out of the corner of his eye Dick sees the other Gryffindor Beater close in on him, but he’s already ascended to a few feet behind and underneath Raquel where the Snitch is hovering in her shadow. Dick grabs it, leans left to shoot past Raquel, and punches his fist into the air, Snitch gleaming in his fingers.

 

It takes a second for the stadium to realise what’s happened, but as soon as Madame Hol’s whistle goes and Mal shouts out the capture of the Snitch, the stands erupt. The Quidditch Cup is in the bag with Ravenclaw’s victory of 190-70, and Alexa, tears streaming down her cheeks, leads the team on a triumphant lap of the pitch, flying low over the blue crowd behind their goal hoops with ear-splitting cheers ringing in their ears. Professor Palmer looks like he’s burst into tears too as Professor Hol gamely shakes his hand, and Roquette hands him a handkerchief with a long-suffering look on her face. Bruce is also present in the teacher section, and as Dick soars overhead Bruce grins up at him, blue scarf proudly displayed around his neck.

 

With the thrill of flight and victory singing in his body, Dick lifts the Cup into the air to the cheers of the crowd, finally feeling like all the cobwebs have been blown away. Let the N.E.W.Ts do their worst - he's invincible like this.  


 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The N.E.W.Ts have arrived! We've finally reached the last uphill slog before the end of term. Thank you to everyone who's stuck with me so far, I hope the next few chapters don't disappoint :)

The thrill of the Quidditch Cup victory buoys Dick up for at least a week, but unfortunately most of his cohort aren’t feeling as calm as he is, and the teachers certainly aren’t helping. Monday evening a week after the match Professor Palmer gives the fifth and seventh year Ravenclaws their exam timetable and a thorough lecture about the various anti-cheating measures that will be in place, including Sneakoscopes and spells cast on the exam paper, up in the Common Room.

 

“You will also be given a Ministry-approved quill each time you enter the Hall for a theory exam,” Palmer says, brandishing an example in front of them. “I hope I don’t have to tell you that I expect nothing less than total compliance from Ravenclaw students, and nothing less than excellence in your performance and behaviour as befits the illustrious intellectual history of this great House. So help me, if I find out that a Ravenclaw – a Ravenclaw, of all the Houses! – is the one student who always thinks they can beat the Ministry anti-cheating spells, I will make the rest of your academic life a living hell that not even Klarion can quite achieve. Do you understand?”

 

A chorus of “Yes, Professor,” sweeps around the room, and Palmer leaves them to it as they study their timetables. Theory in the morning, practicals in the afternoon, and only Tuesday of the second week off for Dick with his ten subjects – Tuesday, and two free afternoons, since neither Arithmancy nor Ancient Runes have practical components. Their astronomy exam obviously has to be scheduled at night, and Dick scans the timetable: midnight on the first Friday, and he pulls a face at the sight of Theory of Transfiguration and Practice of Transfiguration on that day too. Potions is first up on Monday, Defence Against the Dark Arts is on Tuesday, Alchemy is on Thursday, which gives him the whole of Wednesday afternoon after Ancient Runes to prepare, and the whole block finishes the Friday after that with Herbology.

 

“Merlin’s beard,” Wally groans, and they swap timetables to commiserate. Dick sees a few of the fifth years looking about furtively on the other side of the room as they pocket their own timetables, and stares as one hands another a small velvet pouch. He has a feeling he knows what the exchange he just witnessed was, and his suspicion is turned into certainty when the Head Girl Rhiannon calls an emergency meeting of prefects the next afternoon to try and contain the black market trading of goods that are supposed to increase memory retention, boost concentration and reduce stress which has sprung up among the students.

 

“I confiscated this yesterday,” she says, holding up a small box filled with white hair, “after a fifth year bought it for ten galleons. It’s supposedly unicorn mane for mental strength but I’ve checked it and it’s just strands of silver thread. It’s not dangerous, but I think we all remember the powdered Doxy eggs fiasco a few years ago.”

 

All the assembled prefects wince: those boils had not been pretty.

 

The professors have long ceased giving them new materials and instead corral them back through what feels like almost everything they’ve ever done, and the last week before N.E.W.Ts is devoted to hours upon hours of revision, prefect patrols through the small alcoves at the back of the library where the black market seems to be flourishing, and trying not to get caught up in the general pervading atmosphere of frantic, manic energy.

 

Dick almost does, almost loses his self-assured equanimity to a spiteful, stressed remark made carelessly outside the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom. They’re filing out the door on Wednesday, heads swimming with the correct series of spells to cast in the face of a rampaging manticore, when Professor Wayne calls over the hubbub to remind them to write their names down on the list outside the door if they want to book a ten-minute slot with him over the weekend to revise any topic they need to. Dick walks over to the sheet of paper with Wally and the others, and after they’ve chosen a time he steps forward, accepting the quill from Conner.

 

“Don’t know why Grayson even bothers writing his name down,” Kaspar Thewlis mutters to his friends on the other side of the corridor, gaunt face scrunched into a scowl, “everyone knows he’s Wayne’s favourite. He probably gets extra study at home.”

 

Dick’s grip around the quill tightens and he locks his jaw as anger starts to bubble just below the surface of his skin. Wally puts a warning hand on his shoulder and Dick deliberately evens out his breathing, relaxing his fingers. Kaspar’s just tired and stressed; Dick doesn’t know if the idiot even realises his every word can be heard. If that had been all, he could have shaken off the spiteful little remark like the thousands of other barbs he’s heard over the years of Bruce’s tenure here. But it isn’t all.

 

“Isn’t he supposed to be able to produce a Patronus already? What does he need to revise for? Is he trying to take the practice time away from someone who actually needs it? Taking advantage of your guardian being a teacher is just –”

 

Dick doesn’t wait to hear what advantage he’s taking and whirls around, shaking Wally’s restraining hand off his shoulder and advancing furiously toward Kaspar, wand in his hand. “What do you know, asshole? Do you know how hard I have to work in this class to make sure Wayne doesn’t call me out? He expects more of me than any of you losers, works me harder than any of you, precisely because morons like you would cry how unfair it is if it even looked like he was taking it easy on me!”

 

Kaspar splutters in the face of Dick’s fury, quailing as Dick stalks forward even as he tries to bluster his way out of it. Most of their class has frozen in place, watching the scene unfold with uneasy fascination. “Well you don’t even need – you just said he does treat you differently –”

 

“Yeah, I just said he expects much more of me, and you have no idea how hard it is sometimes to live up to that expectation. On that other hand, he has taught me stuff he’d never trust your miserable ass with. Want to see?” Dick’s far too angry to consider the wisdom of forcing a duel upon a classmate; the magic sparking in his body like filaments of lightning mixes with the tension that’s been cording itself into his muscles since Christmas, since his birthday, and makes it hard to think. He stops less than a foot away, using the three inches of height he has on Kaspar to loom over the scrawny bastard, and feels Wally step to his side, ready to offer himself as a second.

 

“Enough!” Kaldur barks, interposing himself between the two men and shoving them apart. “Thewlis, five points from Gryffindor for your baseless, immature and spiteful accusations. Grayson, five points from Ravenclaw for engaging with him and trying to force a confrontation. I know the stress is affecting us all, but if I see any more fights the participants can expect an immediate detention, am I clear? We have better things to do with our valuable time than squabble among ourselves.”

 

No one moves for a few tense seconds, and then Kaspar steps down. “Whatever,” he scowls, and turns away. His movement finally breaks the spell holding the rest of the class silent and still, and the swell of voices bounces off the stone walls as the crowd begins to disperse.

 

“You okay?” Wally asks quietly, grabbing Dick’s arm and pulling him down the corridor before Bruce can stick his head out of the room and demand an explanation. Kaldur falls into step beside him and Conner and Artemis follow.

 

“Yeah,” he says. “Thanks for backing me.”

 

“Any time,” Wally grins.

 

“And thanks for stepping in, Kaldur. I shouldn’t have dignified that loser with a response, I was just so angry. Who the hell does he think he is, questioning me like that? Questioning Bruce like that? He’s just lucky it was me in earshot; Bruce would have torn him apart. Would have torn me apart, too,” he adds sheepishly, shoulders slumping as the rage dissipates, “right before Headmistress Prince mounted my head in her wall.” He slips a hand into his pocket to hold the cool disc of his watch for a few moments, running the pad of his thumb across the engraved lid to try and calm his temper.

 

Kaldur smiles and knocks his shoulder companionably against Dick’s. “No need for thanks, my friend. Believe me, I would have been happy to see Kaspar a victim of the Bat-Bogie Hex, but the consequences would not have been worth the momentary gratification.”

 

“I know,” sighs Dick.

 

“Don’t worry about it,” Conner advises, “he’s an asshole. We can take care of him.” He looks at Artemis, who grins like a shark that’s just spotted a seal in the shallows.

 

Kaldur groans and covers his ears. “I didn’t hear that.”

 

Lunch is fairly quiet, as is usual these days ever since Euterpe Bronx screamed at a group of innocuous second years for chewing too loudly and had to be taken to Doctor Chapel for a Calming Draught. The gossip about the almost-fight outside the DADA classroom doesn’t spread much further than the seventh years; by this time everyone’s too worried about N.E.W.Ts to pay too much attention to gossip.

 

That’s fine: it gives him more time to upbraid himself. Being an Auror means being able to keep a level head in high-pressure, dangerous situations and Dick let his anger overwhelm his judgement, let the jealousy of a seventeen-year-old who’s not very good at Defence Against the Dark Arts rile him up until the Head Boy had to intervene to save him from the consequences of his loss of temper.

 

“Stop it,” Conner says that evening in the library where they’re bent over five years’ worth of Transfiguration notes.

 

“What?” asks Dick, lifting his head and wincing as his neck protests.

 

“Beating yourself up,” Conner replies, frowning at him. “Listen, you lost your temper, let the stress get to you, big deal.”

 

“It is a big deal,” Dick insists, “I should have –”

 

“See that right there? That’s your problem. Trust me, Dick, losing your temper every now and then isn’t going to ruin your whole future. Was it an overreaction? Maybe. Should you have reacted? Probably not. But if you keep freaking out over the past,” he leans over to flick Dick between the eyes, “you’re not going to get very far with the future.”

 

“Since when are you channelling such wisdom, Kent?”

 

Conner shrugs, looking smug. “I had to do something with all the anger management classes Lance gave me in first year.” He lets Dick land a few punches on his shoulder, indulging him for maybe thirty seconds or so before grabbing him around the neck and face-planting Dick back into his notes. Dick garbles an indistinct swear word, hand coming up with middle finger raised, and Conner sniggers, ignoring the disapproving frowns directed at them for disturbing the quiet of the library.

 

Conner’s right, which isn’t that rare, to be honest, and Dick forgives himself. He has ten Outstandings to get, and nothing is going to get in his way. Besides, the sound of Kaspar Thewlis coming down to the Gryffindor Table and trying to tell his friends to stop laughing in limerick the next morning is well worth the brief frustration of being unable to hex him into next week.

 

Finally the week ends and the countdown to N.E.W.Ts is measured in hours. Seventy-two, forty-eight, twenty-four... Dick alternates between studying in the library and the Room of Requirement, and ignores the longing tug in his chest that tells him to seek sanctuary in Bruce’s office. Apart from his ten-minute session, which he uses to drink a cup of Alfred’s special tea and run through everything he’s ever done on close-quarter combat spells with Bruce, he doesn’t go anywhere near the West Tower. Dick doesn’t know what the examiners would say if they found out he spent hours closeted away with a professor when no one else did, but it probably wouldn’t be good.

 

Sunday evening finds the atmosphere in the Ravenclaw Common Room comparable to an elastic band, stretched almost to breaking point: Wally is testing himself on this century’s Muggle inventions with hastily-made flash cards; Zatanna and Julius are practicing counter-curse postures over by the window, muttering frantically to themselves; and Karen is sitting on the carpet in front of the fire with her fingers in her ears as she skims over the properties of wormwood for the seventh time today. Barbara has taken over one of the desks on the far side of the room and is the middle of making a barbie doll walk, stand and dance with a series of impatient wand jabs; Gregorian, Grace and Maxwell are reciting definitions of various spells and potion ingredients to one another and checking them against the text books; and Dick has wedged a chair into the corner and is upside down, feet over the back and head lolling as he rereads his table of translation and conjugations for Ancient Runes.

 

When the clock chimes midnight Dick knows an impulse to ignore it, to keep studying, but he knows better than that. Turning himself right side up, he bids his friends goodnight and climbs the stairs to bed. Nerves have settled in his stomach like the butterflies he used to get before performances, but when Dick curls up under his covers he falls asleep fairly quickly: no use fretting now the time has come, and he has faith in his own preparations and intelligence.

 

He’s expecting Etraxsus on Monday morning at the breakfast table, and sure enough the owl flies down while Dick is nibbling unenthusiastically at a piece of dry toast and trying to swallow some tea. There’s a note from Alfred wishing him luck attached to Etraxsus’ leg, and Dick reads it, smiling at the butler’s encouragements. A second after Etraxsus flies off, however, another owl swoops down with a screech and Dick barely gets his arm up in time for Gilgamesh to land, which still doesn’t stop the bastard from whacking Dick around the head with a wing as he folds them against his body.

 

“What are you doing here, bloodsucking beast from hell?” Dick asks him, leaning a little away from the others at the table in case Gilgamesh suddenly decides wan, drooping students are fair game for dinner. Seriously, what is he doing here? The letter is addressed to Dick but Gilgamesh is Bruce’s owl, and a glance up at the High Table tells Dick Bruce is there in his usual seat, reading the paper and ignoring the rest of the Great Hall.

 

“He’s perpetually pissed off, isn’t he,” Wally interrupts his recitation of potions recipes, almost unintelligible for the speed with which he’s mumbling, to remark on the owl’s expression as Gilgamesh digs his claws into Dick’s arm to get his attention.

 

“Yes, he is. Oh, so you deign to bring me mail, is that it?”

 

The owl hoots and clicks his beak indignantly when Dick doesn’t offer him any bacon after removing the envelope. “Fine,” he sighs, and grabs two rashers for Gilgamesh to eat off his plate while Dick slits open the parchment. It’s Bruce’s handwriting, and Dick grips the paper a little tighter as he reads the few lines written.

 

_Dick,_

 

_Keep your head when you go into each exam and remember your breathing. I know your preparation has been excellent: you are ready for this. I won’t wish you luck – you don’t need it._

 

_Bruce._

 

“Geez,” Dick huffs to himself, rolling his eyes and grinning helplessly as the butterflies reappear in his stomach for a completely different reason. Gilgamesh, when he’s finished his snack, nips Dick’s fingers – drawing blood – with his usual mildly affectionate violence, and soars off to perch on the back of his master’s chair. Dick follows his flight and waits for Bruce to look up; when he does Dick meets his gaze across the hall and smiles, folding the letter and slipping it into the safety of his bag. The corner of Bruce’s mouth curves up and he lifts his goblet slightly in a silent toast as he strokes his owl’s back, Gilgamesh clicking his beak quietly by his ear.

 

Spirits considerably buoyed and both heart and stomach feeling lighter, Dick joins the rest of the fifth and seventh years in the Entrance Hall as the Great Hall is transformed for nine-thirty’s first theory exam, the long House tables replaced by hundreds of small single-seat desks. Kaldur and Conner wish them luck and retreat upstairs to study for tomorrow, obviously glad not to be among the hoard of nervous students mumbling definitions, pacing, or holding their stomachs and looking pale.

 

Now that N.E.W.Ts are here, though, Dick is calm and sure. He counts his breaths and doesn’t try to revise anything more, instead letting his mind clear and his last nerves settle as he ignores everyone around him. The fifth years are called in first to sit alphabetically up the front of the Hall, and when the seventh years begin to file in, accepting their anti-cheating quills from the examiner by the door, Dick is ready to get this finished and out of the way. The eight Ministry examiners arrived last night, according to Kaldur who met them with Rhiannon, and Dick flicks his gaze around to see two unfamiliar wizards standing by the hourglass at the front of the Hall. 

 

“Fifth year students sitting your O.W.Ls,” Professor Nelson says, proctoring the Theory of Potions, “please check that your exam paper is the appropriate level. Seventh years sitting your N.E.W.Ts, please do the same. No one will be permitted to enter or leave the Hall for the duration of the exam. You have two hours. Begin.”

 

Dick flips over his paper, writes his name on the answer sheet, and reads the first question. _Name a) the three primary ingredients in a Comatose Draught and b) give their properties._ An image of Wally passed out at their Potions desk comes into his head, and Dick puts quill to paper and lets the answers flow. 

 

“How’d you go?” Wally asks, offering a high five as they leave the Great Hall two hours later in tired triumph. Dick smacks his palm to Wally’s and grins. 

 

“Pretty good, I hope. The secondary use of dried Billywig stings is thinning a solution, isn’t it?”

 

“Yep.”

 

“Oh good,” Dick sighs, “I was tossing up between lightening the colour and thinning the texture, but I was fairly sure I’d listened to you complaining about the conspiracy of putting Billywigs in Fizzing Whizbees all through fifth year. How’d you do?”

 

“Fine,” Wally says, looking confident, “there was nothing that I didn’t know at least part of the answer to.”

 

They meet up with the others and wait for the Hall to be restored to its usual setting for lunch, but there’s not much time to compare answers when that afternoon’s practical is an hour away. They’re split into groups based on their last names, and Dick lines up outside Dungeon Five with the rest of G to M until the proctor calls them in. Standing behind identical pewter cauldrons, they’re given two hours to brew the Pepper-Up Potion, and he exchanges a brief glance with Barbara before averting his eyes in case Kord calls him out for cheating: it’s a very delicate, finicky potion to brew under a time constraint since very precise quantities of crushed salamander shells are needed if you don’t want to drinker to actually breath fire. Dick carefully pours a sample of his potion into a phial, labels it and places it on the front desk beside the examiner two hours later, fairly confident in the finished product. 

 

Still, there’s no time for reflection with nine other subjects to prepare for, but since tomorrow’s exam is Defence Against the Dark Arts, Dick decides to skip study this afternoon before dinner and exercise in the Room of Requirement instead. Hunching over desks for a fortnight is going to wreak havoc with his posture, and Dick works out the kinks and knots as best he can. Returning to the Common Room after dinner much more limber than the mess of knots he was on Sunday, Dick opens Vindictus Virridian and loses himself in curses and counter-curses. 

 

The written exam next morning is as easy as he’d hoped, and Dick finishes with five minutes to spare for a final spell-check before handing it in with fingers crossed for full marks. After lunch they all have to wait in an antechamber off the Entrance Hall to be called in alphabetically to their practical exam. ‘Ahm, Kaldur’ is among the first to go in, with 'Beecher, Karen' and ‘Bellany, Maxwell’, and they send them off with various encouragements. ‘Crock, Artemis’ and ‘Duncan, Mal,’ go in about ten minutes later, and another fifteen after that ‘Gordon, Barbara,’ ‘Grayson, Richard’ and ‘Hampshire, Gregorian’ are called. 

 

“Miss Gordon, Professor Sitwell will supervise your examination,” Professor Roquette says, gesturing Barbara towards a green-robed wizard on the far side of the Hall. “You two, wait here a moment for a supervisor to become available.” She’s barely finished before a sharp-nosed witch near the middle waves an imperious hand and Roquette sends Dick over to her. 

 

“Professor Schreiber, a pleasure to see you again,” he says, reaching her, and Schreiber looks through her _pince-nez_  at him. 

 

“Ah, Wayne’s ward. You’ve grown.”

 

“Thank you. His former ward: I turned seventeen in December.”

 

“So you did,” Schreiber comments. “Well, enough chit-chat, Mr Grayson. Let us see if you’ve your mentor’s flare for Defence Against the Dark Arts. Perform your best Disillusionment Charm on this rabbit.”

 

Schreiber puts Dick through his paces but he has no trouble with any of the tasks she sets him, even managing to win a raised eyebrow when he starts incorporating several advanced techniques into his blocks and counter-spells. Schreiber concludes the exam by asking Dick to demonstrate the series of spells he would use to subdue a mountain troll. It’s probably the only magical creature Dick has yet to face, which is somewhat inconvenient at the present moment, but Bruce has had to deal with several in his time and Dick raises his wand, aware that this is likely to be a slightly unconventional approach. 

 

“ _Expecto Patronum_!” 

 

With a little help from the memory of the first time he swung out on a trapeze, a silver larger-than-life robin bursts out of his wand and soars up into the rafters of the Hall. Immediately Dick begins conjuring thick black ropes that coil in front of him and then reinforces them with chains interwoven with the hemp as the Patronus begins to fade. With a last wave of his wand, a crimson Stunning Spell smacks into the target on the far wall, scorching the cardboard bullseye.

 

“Interesting choice, Mr Grayson. Your execution of the spells is remarkable.”

 

“Thank you, ma’am,” he says, grinning. “I know it’s unusual but the Patronus will distract and divert the troll, who has very little intellect, and the powerful protective goodness within the charm also serves to annoy the troll, which will keep its attention on the Patronus rather than its caster. Then these ropes and chains can be conjured around the troll, and finally the Stupefying Charm or any other subduing incantation can be used to render the troll unconscious.”

 

Professor Schreiber examines his chain-ropes and then has him Vanish them. “Well, you’re innovative, that’s for certain. Who knows, you might even make a name for yourself.” She shoos him off and Dick scampers out of the Hall, grinning wryly at the compliment with a sting in its tail. He won’t count his Phoenixes before they hatch, but if he’s not looking at an Outstanding N.E.W.T this time in July he’ll have to change his name and move countries. 

 

Ancient Runes is less of a thrill and more of an uphill slog through years of translation, declension and conjugation, but Dick still emerges feeling relatively confident in his performance, though as soon as he reaches the Common Room he realises he mistook _ӕscӕ_ for _aca_ and consequently translated the sentence incorrectly. He spends five minutes stewing over that, shakes it off, and dives straight into Alchemy revision. The exam is three hours rather than two two-hour sessions, since it’ll combine theory and practical, and Dick and Kaldur eventually take over a corner of the Hufflepuff Common Room with a plate of scones begged from the kitchens a corridor away and remain there for the next six hours as they test each other on archaic formula and obscure fourteenth-century lore.

 

The Alchemy exam is just as challenging as he and Kaldur anticipated, but it is a challenge, and Dick rises eagerly to meet it. He ends up accidentally drawing the tail of the emblem for Sulphur3 the wrong way while transmuting a glass rose from ruby-red, sulphide-heavy wine but corrects it immediately before too much pungent smoke is produced and hopes the examiner doesn’t notice. He completes the rest of the exam without a hitch, and when he tells Wally about it that night, Dick is considerably cheered by Wally’s account of that afternoon’s Muggle Studies practical where he accidentally animated a radio set they were supposed to be reconstructing and it barked like a dog until Grace hit it with a wrench. 

 

Theory of Transfiguration the next day is a bit like sieving through the dross of seven years’ study for the few nuggets of golden information and Dick very nearly doesn’t finish the last question on the relevance of thaumaturgy to modern elemental transfiguration to his satisfaction. He could have added more on the warlock intervention of 1705 and the development of the modern doctrine from that, but there isn’t time, and he does know the information is a little superfluous without Artemis’ criticism echoing in his head.

 

The practical that afternoon is better: it might be the arrogance Bruce Wayne’s protégé is often accused of, but Dick is confident in his ability to wield magic and in this case, when he’s expected to perform a complex progression of spells to turn a desk into working miniature model of an old-fashioned maritime canon and back again, he thinks some arrogance can be useful. After all, first impressions of competence are important, and he has always loved performing. 

 

Astronomy that evening is a soothing finale to the hectic first week even as the eyes of many seventh years begin to burn with exhaustion. Dick’s parents loved telling him stories of the myths and legends behind the constellations and Bruce occasionally continued the trend in between teaching him to navigate using the stars, so Dick’s star chart is completed and double-checked with ten minutes to spare. Professor Nightingale gives him a rare smile at the conclusion of the ninety-minute exam. 

 

His internal alarm wakes Dick at six the next morning, but as soon as he blearily remembers he doesn’t have anything on today Dick promptly rolls over and goes back to sleep.

 

He eventually stumbles down to lunch after an hour of Charms study to realise he’s properly hungry for the first time in weeks and tucks into a huge slice of chicken, leek and potato pie while watching Megan cycle through all the hairstyles of the Wyrd Sisters. She changes her appearance constantly when stressed, and spends most of Saturday’s revision in the library as an almost perfect replica of Dinah Lance, which is more than a little off-putting. Megan’s explanation is that she channels the ex-professor’s kickass work ethic better like this - Conner just looks vaguely uncomfortable when Megan curls into his side and bemoans the general state of the world. 

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At last exams come to an end and the culmination (cough climax cough) is near at hand.

Theory of Charms on the second Monday requires all of Dick’s concentration and the Practice of Charms all his graceful precision, but Professor Grant has more of a sense of humour than Schreiber and grins in amused approval when Dick adds extra flourish in the shape of a little handspring and a somersault to the manoeuvres of the pillow he’d shaped into a doll and sent dancing and tumbling through the obstacle course set up on the floor of the Great Hall. He has Tuesday off and takes his Solarflare out for hours of flight over the grounds before settling in for Arithmancy study, swooping low over the lake to tempt the Giant Squid into raising a tentacle for the crusts of bread Dick saved from breakfast, soaring high over the vast verdant carpet of the Forbidden Forest and circling the towers and minarets of the castle as lazily as a hawk gliding on gusts of wind. He feels human after that, weightless and free even as the stone of the castle envelopes him on his return from the broom shed, blocking out the sun. 

 

He lays down his quill just as Professor Pierce calls for the completion of the Arithmancy exam on Wednesday morning and scans his answers, pleased and fairly sure that he’s done one of his favourite subjects justice. A summer squall makes the Practical of Care of Magical Creatures the next day grey and soggy, but Augureys wait for no man, and there’s the promise hot chocolate and buttery croissants for afternoon tea to get them through the exam. Dick does less well than he would have liked when they’re asked to catch a Murtlap and remove a piece of the curse-resistant growth upon its back, but it’s not his fault they’re a little too wound up to be caught without a lot of splashing about the temporary coastal habitat created for them in the grounds: Euterpe Bronx has the oozing bite on her hand as punishment for her incorrect handling and Dick can’t be too angry at her, especially since he successfully removes a piece of Murtlap growth and completes the exam without grievous bodily harm, which is always nice. 

 

“One more,” Wally groans, flinging himself into a seat at dinner on Thursday, drowning his potatoes and possibly his sorrows in gravy, “just one to go!”

 

Dick clinks his goblet to Wally’s in agreement. The end of N.E.W.Ts is finally on the horizon, graduation barely two weeks after that, and a different set of nerves are beginning to wake in the back of Dick’s mind. He resolutely pushes the thought away – he still has one exam left, and he’s too strong a chess player to let down his guard just because the opposite King is in sight. 

 

Theory of Herbology has been lauded as a bit of a joke among Hogwarts students, and to be honest some of the questions are basic to the point of boredom, such as growing seasons and the correct ratio of dragon dung manure to potting mix for Screechsnap, but there are a few tougher ones lying in wait. _What Potion is made from the syrup extracted from Hellebore? What do Scurvy-grass and Lovage have in common? Why do centaurs burn Mallowsweet? List a) each stage in detail of a mandrake’s growth and b) the process by which the mandrakes are made ready for the Restorative Draught._ Dick finishes the last question and returns to flesh out his answer to number ten, unsure as to whether or not he’s given enough detail on the planting stage of the mandrake. 

 

Everyone’s jittery and impatient as they line up outside the green houses after lunch for their last ever exam, looking longingly out at the clear blue sky and silvery lake gleaming with the sun’s reflection. Professor Nimis clears his throat portentously and ushers them inside behind the rows of benches laden with pots, trowels and soil mixes. 

 

“Here are your ten tasks,” he says, writing them up on the board in shaky, if large, letters. “You have two hours. Please wear your dragon hide gloves throughout this exam. You may begin.”  

 

The thick, earthy scent of fertiliser and compost grows stronger as the top bulb of the hourglass steadily empties, and the greenhouse heats to an almost unbearable point as the sun streams down through the glass onto the sweating students in their long black robes. Dick swipes a hand across his forehead, uncaring of the fact he’s probably painted stripes of soil across his face, and turns his attention to the last task. His protective goggles are fogging up so he cleans them before doing anything else, and then slips a gum guard into his mouth. Overcautious he may be, but thus far Dick is unscathed, despite the best efforts of the wriggling Bubotuber they’d had to collect pus from. Gregorian hadn’t been so lucky, and was trying to catch up after having the burning blisters treated.

 

Mouth guard in place, Dick carefully wraps his hands around the terracotta pot waiting on the side bench in the last section of the exam, and with possibly the steadiest grip he has ever mustered, maybe barring the time Alfred let him help clean the two-hundred-year-old Wayne family china, lifts the Snargaluff and begins the slow walk back over to his bench.

 

He’s very conscious of his bare forearms where he’s pushed back his sleeves under the sweltering sun and a few feet away from his seat, he swears the Snargaluff is eyeing the exposed skin hungrily. Dick places it very carefully down on the bench and then tears his hands away, leaping back just in time to avoid being strangled by the long, sinuous, _barbed_ vines uncurling from a knot in the wood near the top of the plant, which imitates a dead tree stump to lull prey into a false sense of security. The vines flick out right at his arm like the striking of a scorpion’s tail and scrape across his skin – one tries to tangle in his hair and another ricochets off his goggles – but Dick darts out of reach, smacking them aside with a trowel, and they sulkily retreat. Luckily the thorns on the vines aren’t tipped with anything lethal, but the Snargaluff is the first entry in _Flesh-Eating Trees of the World_ for a reason.

 

For a wild moment Dick utterly and completely sides with Doctor Chapel as he dabs at the bleeding cuts with the edge of his robes: who the hell puts these kinds of flesh-eating plants in a _school_?

 

He only has about ten minutes left, by his estimate, and so Dick tugs his gloves on move securely, picks a few cubes of raw meat from the container up the front, and offers one very carefully to the Snargaluff speared on the end of his trowel. The plant ignores the treat for a moment until Dick starts throwing meat at it impatiently, and then the vines come out to pick up the meat and bring the cubes down into its stomach chamber. Dick waits two minutes, the longest he can afford, for the plant to begin digesting and then plunges his hand into the small hole under the knot where the vines emerge.

 

The wood tightens around Dick’s elbow with enough force, if it had been a fully mature plant, to fracture bones, but Dick is already withdrawing his hand with a pulsating green pod held victoriously between his fingers. He pacifies the plant with another handful of meat, ignoring the muffled squawk of shock from across the greenhouse as someone else attempts to deal with their Snargaluff by catching and restraining the vines – which is only effective, thanks to the plant’s bad attitude, when there are multiple people helping. Dick picks up his secateurs and manages to pierce the pod with one vicious stab; tamping down the urge to retch at the sight of the wriggling pale green tubers, he pours the pod’s innards into a glass flask, labels it and steps away from his desk. Finally! His feet are sore, the cuts on his arms are stinging under the beads of sweat and he's covered in dirt, but Dick tips back his head with a wide grin and laughs silently to himself, shoulders free at last of the weight of exams.  

 

At last, at long last, Professor Nimis calls out the conclusion of the exam and Dick joins in the swell of cheers as the seventh years celebrate their completion of study. Nimis brings them back under control for a few moments to remind them N.E.W.T results will be mailed to them late July and that they still have two weeks of class left where their professors will advise them on their graduation, and then he releases them with an exasperated hand flap. 

 

“Yes! Freedom at last!” Wally bounds outside, hollering his triumph to the skies and hugging anyone who goes near him. Many others are doing the exact same thing, and Dick gets pulled into a back-thumping congratulatory embrace by nearly everyone in the Herbology exam. He returns the hugs, and when he disentangles himself from Rhiannon Dick cups his hands around his mouth. 

 

“Come on, guys! I don’t know about you, but I thought it was a little warm in there!” He grabs his bag, grins wildly, and hightails it over to the shores of the lake, pulling off his robes as he goes. Throwing his bag, wand, robes, tie, shirt, socks and shoes under a tree near the waterline, Dick dives into the blissfully cool, quiet depths of the greenish-blue lake. Pulling himself further out with a few powerful strokes, Dick surfaces to see Kaldur diving in, always at home in the water, and Wally struggling with his last shoe before laughing madly and bomb-diving into the lake. Soon enough nearly the whole of the seventh year cohort is splashing about in the water, delighting in the cool temperature and the chance to relax after a fortnight of stress.

 

Dick turns onto his back and gazes up at the sky, tension melting out of his muscles as he floats lazily and keeps an eye out for Wally’s ambush splash-attacks. Bright summer afternoons like this seem to last forever, whether they’re admired from a meadow with the hubbub of the circus setting up nearby, the fresh-clipped lawn of Wayne Manor with the faint sound of the radio in the kitchen drifting over on the wind, or the Hogwarts lake, luxuriating in the completion of exams the whole seven years of education have been leading up to.

 

The light has mellowed by the time they emerge, dripping and pruny, from the lake, but the afternoon is still bright and warm, and Dick can’t get the smile off his face.

 

A few evaporating charms later, they meander gradually back up to the castle, chattering about N.E.W.Ts, what they got wrong, what they got right, and what they plan for the summer, and the only sour note is the realisation that after this they’ll have to keep in touch on their own. There’s no Hogwarts next year to bring them together again. Dick has been so focused on graduation as a marking point, a line to draw between ‘not allowed’ and ‘allowed’, that he’s almost forgotten what graduation actually means. 

 

Kaldur drops back a little to walk beside Dick. He doesn’t even need to say anything; Dick can tell what question he wants to ask by the polite, ‘how do I phrase this’ look on his friend’s face.

 

“This summer,” he murmurs in answer. “If not, I have the Auror entry tests and aptitude evaluations to prepare for.”

 

“And if so?”

 

Dick is silent for a moment. “Then it’s the rest of my life,” he says, and then winces at the grandiose sentiment no matter how true it is. Kaldur just chuckles.

 

“I expect an owl,” he tells Dick, “I have never played Cupid before. Megan and Conner did not need our help, and I don’t think anyone was quite brave enough to try and influence Artemis or Wally.”

 

“Technically you haven’t played Cupid here either,” Dick points out as they reach the stone steps. 

 

“You know what I mean,” Kaldur says. 

 

“Yeah, I know. I’ll see what I can do,” he temporises, clapping Kaldur on the back. “See you at dinner, I’m going up to change.”

 

Dinner is a raucous affair, especially when Headmistress Prince stands up to congratulate the fifth and seventh years for the completion of their exams – before exhorting them not to let their behaviour deteriorate just because most assessments have finished. The House Cup, awarded on the last evening of term, is leaning towards Hufflepuff, but there was a rather spectacular upset the night before the End-of-Year Feast when Dick was in second year: two students from Gryffindor, which had been leading by 40 points, had been caught _in flagrante delicto_ out of bounds and after curfew and cost their House the win. With the help of the 150 points from Quidditch Ravenclaw are only fifteen points behind, and Slytherin seven points behind them: any misdemeanour or sudden excellence could see them either runner-up or victorious. 

 

“To be honest, I don’t have the energy,” Dick confides to Wally. “I mean, go Ravenclaw, but I’m not about to go slaying a dragon just to win points.”

 

“What did a dragon ever do to you?” Grace asks, affronted. 

 

“I know what you mean,” Wally says, ignoring her, “but we could always help Hufflepuff lose, if you know what I mean.”

 

“I think Mr Smith knows our sabotage style by now, Walls,” Dick snickers, “we might be risking discovery.”

 

Wally scowls but nods in agreement. 

 

Saturday morning dawns with blissful lethargy, and snores fill the dorm long past their usual early start. Dick slips in and out of a doze for an hour after first waking, and allows himself an indulgent half-hour in the prefects’ bathroom with his favourite starburst bubbles floating about in the steaming water with him. When he knocks, unlocks and disables the wards on Bruce’s chamber door, he’s more rested and probably sweeter-smelling than he’s been in weeks. 

 

“Morning,” he calls, locking and re-warding the door. 

 

“Morning,” Bruce replies, and appears from his bedroom dressed relatively casually in trousers and a soft grey turtleneck sweater. He smiles and comes forward to rest a hand on Dick’s shoulder. “Congratulations on completing your N.E.W.Ts, Dick. How do you feel?”

 

Dick grins at him, “I think my head must be ten pounds lighter, I poured basically everything I had after seven years of study onto the parchment. I also think I drank my body weight in tea, but I didn’t get a chance to quantify that. You should have seen the DADA theory, it was a walk in the park!”

 

“I’m glad you found it so,” Bruce says, guiding him over to the armchairs by the window and pouring him a cup of tea. “Who did you have for the practical?”

 

“Professor Schreiber,” Dick answers, and launches into a recount of his various tasks and exams. Bruce nods and responds in the appropriate places, looking intrigued at some points and surprised at others, and Dick has  _missed_ this, missed him. He almost says as much, but knows Bruce will either deflect or withdraw; with only a fortnight till the end of term Dick knows he can wait. He’s been patient for more than two years, he can continue to be so now that the end is in sight. 

 

“Thanks for sending Gilgamesh,” Dick says when he’s waiting by the door for Bruce to fish out an article he thinks Dick ought to read from the _Daily Prophet_. “I really appreciated it.”

 

Bruce crosses the study with the relevant page in his hand and then seems to remember what his owl had delivered. “That – you’re welcome.”

 

Their eyes meet and then simultaneously fall away as Dick accepts the page. The weight of the two weeks – fourteen days, 336 hours, 20,160 minutes, because Dick is bloody well counting every second – is beyond oppressive now. “Thanks,” is all he can say. “See you in class.”

 

He heads up to the Owlery where Etraxsus hops happily down onto his shoulder, and spends fifteen minutes filling a roll of parchment with a recap for Alfred of the fortnight of N.E.W.Ts and the interesting parts of the practical exams. By the end, Etraxsus gives the thick scroll a highly unimpressed look but nonetheless allows Dick to tie it to his scaly leg. 

 

“Thanks, Trax,” Dick croons, stroking his back. “We’ll be home soon and you can have as many bacon bits as you can swallow.” 

 

“Better make sure he can still fly with that tummy,” Zatanna giggles from behind him. 

 

“Hey, Z, didn’t hear you come up.” Dick lets his owl take flight and walks over the bone-strewn floor towards her. 

 

“Just letting dad know I made it through N.E.W.Ts alive,” she says, beckoning a school owl down from its perch and tying her letter onto its leg. “He’s so overprotective sometimes, I’m amazed he even let me go to Hogwarts in the first place.”

 

“I imagine all our shenanigans over the past years didn't fill him with confidence,” Dick snickers, and Zatanna laughs.

 

“He likes to blame me for all the grey hairs,” she says, sending the owl out of the window, and then links her arm with Dick’s as they head down to breakfast.

  
 * * *

 

The next two weeks are possibly the laziest Dick has ever spent at Hogwarts. Drenched in summer sunshine, they meander from one class to another, helping out with cleaning classrooms, restocking and reorganising potions supplies, learning odd little spells for fun – Dick’s favourite is a charm Professor Jordan teaches them for lifting the ink off a page, either to remove a mistake or to really, really annoy a friend – and playing trivia and word games while their professors use the time to mark the lower years’ exams.

 

Defence Against the Dark Arts is the only class they still have to work in - it's Professor Wayne, after all - but even there they hold gameshow-like quizzes where ten correct answers to questions like, ‘name three of the most notorious Dark Wizards of the last century’ and ‘what is the incantation of the Jelly-Legs Curse’ gets you two House points and a chocolate frog. On their last lesson, the Wednesday the day before the End-of-Term Feast, Bruce takes them out to the Quidditch Pitch to their great delight, enchants about a hundred golf balls to fly in patterns similar to the erratic flight of Cornish Pixies, and tells them whoever catches the most by the end of the lesson – which can be done by immobilising them or stealing other peoples’ – will get ten points and a bag of fudge. He even gives the Quidditch players among them a ten second delayed start to make it fair, and Dick loves him so much it feels like his heart will burst. 

 

Five seconds into the game, Dick realises that Bruce is playing too: he has a bat and an endless supply of slightly bigger plastic balls to distract the students from their chase. “If you’re hit, you have to land for ten seconds,” he commands, and students disperse like squawking seagulls before one of Slytherin’s best former Beaters. 

 

It’s a bloodthirsty, ruthless game. Artemis is hell-bent on taking revenge for Dick’s tactics in the Cup game and keeps on his tail like an avenging Fury; he spends most of the lesson avoiding her, stealing levitating golf balls from Wally and Zatanna, and taking refuge behind Bruce when Megan starts picking on him too. Bruce lets him get away with it the first two times, and then starts aiming the mini-Bludgers his way. 

 

“Fine, be like that,” Dick hollers, ducking, “see if I do anything nice ever!” 

 

Wally’s laughing so hard he’s crying and gets a ball in the face in recompense, and by the time the bell rings everyone’s breathless and red-faced. The prize is split between Raquel and Conner, who immediately dive into the fudge like vultures. Dick takes advantage of the general chaos of returning the school brooms to the shed and sidles over to Bruce. 

 

“Not bad for an old man,” he says, poking him in the side with the Solarflare’s handle, “but you missed me!”

 

Bruce goes to trip him and Dick dances away, sniggering. “Not bad for a baby bird,” Bruce responds, flicking the last foam ball at him. Dick grins and waits for Wally and the others, broom resting on one shoulder to be locked into his trunk before they leave Friday morning. 

 

Graduation the next morning is a small ceremony since it’s the N.E.W.Ts results that really count, but the seventh years gather in the Great Hall after breakfast to receive a certificate from Headmistress Prince in recognition of completing seven years’ magical education. Dick can’t help but glance over his shoulder at the double doors. Bruce has a fourth year class this morning, and he doesn’t really expect to see him here. At least, that’s what he tells himself when he sees the doorway is empty. 

 

Gryffindor is first and Artemis accepts a handshake and the certificate from the headmistress and Professor Hol. Hufflepuff follows, then Ravenclaw, and Dick looks out over the Hall in a burst of affection for Hogwarts as he’s called up by Professor Palmer after Barbara – and feels his heart leap as he spots Bruce leaning nonchalantly against the wall by the door. 

 

“Congratulations, Mr Grayson,” Headmistress Prince says, drawing his attention back to her, “I hope you succeed at all your future endeavours.”

 

“Thank you, ma’am,” Dick smiles, “I’m glad I didn’t give you any white hairs.”

 

“Not for lack of trying,” she remarks, but with a smile, and Dick crosses the front of the Hall to return to his seat. Bruce is watching him and Dick beams. He gets a smile in return and then Bruce ducks back out of the door to head back to his class, leaving Dick to sit down and clap for his classmates, distracted by his heart leaping about in his chest like an untrained puppy. 

 

Re-entering the Great Hall that evening for the End-of-Year Feast in their best robes, black pointed hats jauntily perched on their heads, Dick and Wally politely ignore Megan’s undignified glee at seeing the black and yellow colours decorating the Great Hall and sit down at their table. Headmistress Prince waits for the whole school to settle before standing, her diadem headpiece gleaning brilliantly under the light of hundreds of floating candles.

 

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Congratulations on reaching the end of another year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. To our first years, I hope you have found yourself another home. To our fifth years, I hope you found undertaking your O.W.Ls to be a valuable experience. To our seventh years, goodbye and farewell. On behalf of our teachers and staff, we wish you all the best for your future endeavours. May you always remember your time and your friends here at Hogwarts.”

 

Dick glances down Ravenclaw Table and out across the Hall: there are more than a few students determinedly blinking away tears. 

 

“Now, to our House Championship. In fourth place, Gryffindor, with 384 points. In third place, Slytherin, with 397 points. In second place, Ravenclaw, with 416 points. In first place and winner of the House Cup, Hufflepuff, with 423 points.”

 

Applause fills the Hall as Professor Nelson stands and bows to his House, and Wally directs a pout at Dick, clearly blaming him for not letting him sabotage Hufflepuff. 

 

“Oh shut up,” Dick sighs, kicking him under the table, “we've won for the last two years, remember?”

 

Wally’s retort remains unuttered as Professor Prince raises a hand for silence and then recommends they enjoy the feast as the food begins to appear. The House-Elves always outdo themselves on these occasions, and the spread of excellent food never fails to bring a tear of delight to Wally's eye.

 

“Everyone packed?” Dick asks, finally setting down his cutlery and trying not to explode. Maxwell nods but Gregorian looks guilty, and Dick tuts at him. “You left it to the last minute last year too, and nearly missed the train.”

 

“Yes, mother,” Gregorian sighs. 

 

Before he heads up the bed at the end of the feast, Dick makes sure to say goodbye to the people he knows in the lower years, Tim and Victor especially. They wish him luck and he ruffles their hair, telling them to send him an owl if they want advice on subjects or anything like that. Both boys look delighted and Dick laughs, bidding then goodnight and heading up to Ravenclaw Tower for his last ever night in his dormitory. Alfred had taught him well, and Dick is all packed by the time he goes to bed, books, posters, cauldron, broomstick, chess set and robes all wedged neatly and carefully into his trunk with tomorrow’s clothes sitting on top.

 

Gregorian stares gloomily down at his own messy trunk which refuses to close and sighs. 

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They do say train rides are good for thinking :) second-last! A little bit shorter than the others but I hope the next one will make up for it. Enjoy, and thank you so much for sticking with me so far!

The carriages arrive to take them to Hogsmeade station at ten on Friday morning and Raquel secures them one of the slightly larger compartments towards the front of the train. The Hogwarts Express has barely pulled out of the station when Raquel is fishing about in her trunk for parchment and a quill; Dick looks askance at her from where he’s draping a jumper over his owl’s cage. Etraxsus tends to get overexcited by the thought of going home and his hoots turn shrill. 

 

“No way are we playing drinking games at eleven in the morning,” he says, crossing his arms as he sinks into his spot by the window. Raquel laughs at him, settling back into her seat. 

 

“Don’t get your knickers in a knot, Dickie boy,” she advises, “I’m all for drinking games but the trolley never has anything interesting on it.”

 

“Because it’s a school,” Dick rolls his eyes, but watches with reluctant curiosity as Raquel keeps scribbling at the parchment. 

 

“Right, here we go,” she says a minute later, and signs her name with a flourish before handing the paper to Zatanna. “Everyone sign your name,” she directs, “it says, ‘I swear to keep in touch with my friends as identified by their names upon this parchment. If I do not, may I be called a hermit crab and grow feelers and a shell.’ Neat, huh?”

 

Zatanna laughs and signs her name before passing it along. “There isn’t a curse on the parchment, is there? To actually turn us into a hermit crab?”

 

“No,” Raquel sighs, watching as Barbara finishes the loops and swirls of her signature, “I don’t have any curses powerful enough.”

 

The paper comes around to Dick, who scans the lines in amusement before signing his name too and handing the parchment to Kaldur. When everyone has signed, Raquel taps the parchment so it multiplies into ten identical copies, hands one to each of them and tucks the original into her own trunk. “There. Problem solved.”

 

“I think it’s a great idea,” Megan says, beaming. “I’m going to miss you guys so much! I didn’t know anyone when I came to Hogwarts, and I found you guys.”

 

Conner presses a kiss to her head as Megan squeezes Artemis’ hand. 

 

“Girl, stop it,” commands Karen, sitting with Mal’s arm around her, “you’ll make me tear up, and I did not spend ten minutes on this mascara for that.”

 

“She did,” grins Mal, “it was more like fifteen; I thought we’d miss the carriages.” 

 

He takes the elbow in his stomach with good grace.

 

The train rattles along through Scottish countryside, rolling green hills and grey towns passing by under summer sunshine as they change out of their robes, play games, read, talk and eat. With every hour that passes, however, Dick’s anticipation grows like brambles up from his stomach to wrap around his ribs. If his friends notice he’s increasingly distracted, and they can’t not, they have the good will and the wisdom of experience not to disturb him overmuch. By the time lunch is nothing more than a few empty packets scattered across the seats, he can’t even pretend to take an interest in the heated game of Gobstones being played in the floor and curls up in his seat instead, staring out of the window with forehead pressed to the cool glass and watch clasped tightly in the palm of one hand. Every flick of the second hand is taking him further towards the boundary Dick set himself – to their arrival at King’s Cross Station which firmly delineates the line between magic and mundane, school and home, forbidden and allowed – and every tick seems to wind the knot in his stomach tighter and tighter.

 

What is he _doing_? Whatever has taken up residence in his stomach is huge and wriggly and sharp-taloned as he thinks about what he’s about to do. Part of Dick is exasperated with this sudden penchant for second guessing himself – as soon as what he wants most is within his grasp, he pulls away his hands in fear – but the other part is too petrified by that fear to do much more than wonder what on earth he’s thinking. Bruce is – Bruce has far more experience in this than he does, has had numerous romantic flings, has had _sex_ , for god’s sake, and here he is, a seventeen-year-old just out of school planning to commit to a long-term, monogamous relationship with a man who has a decade more experience than he does.

 

Dick shifts in his seat, trying to ignore the faint flutterings of panic. A few times he’s distantly aware of the others trying to catch his attention but the book on his lap, retrieved after a few nervous bites of a pumpkin pastie, helps deflect their intentions – Dick has never been particularly pleasant when his reading is interrupted, a reputation which stands him in good stead now since it leaves him free to think, overthink, plan, analyse, panic.

 

This is the rest of his life: it’s all or nothing when it comes to Bruce. He can’t risk what they have, what they’ve built together, for a brief fling. Dick has to go into this expecting to live the rest of his life with Bruce – and he wants that so much, wants to believe that it can happen – but Bruce has taught him to be realistic and to see the situation as it is as well as how it could be. If, and the thought is too horrible to entertain for long, they break up, could they continue to be a part of each other’s life?

 

He doesn’t see how, no matter how much the thought scares him. There’d be too much invested in the relationship for them to ‘go back to being friends’. The thought that he could lose Bruce, lose the companionship, the bond of sympathy that’s always existed between them since two orphans found a sense of solidarity in someone else and clung to that, makes him reconsider his desire to introduce another new dynamic to their relationship. 

 

The eternal dilemma: risk what you have for something more.

 

And yet, it’s the thought of something more that’s somehow even more frightening. Bruce is the centre of his universe, the fulcrum upon which Dick’s world turns; he’s been such a powerful force in Dick’s life that imagining him naked and stripped bare in front of Dick terrifies him almost as much as it turns him on. The thought of being naked in turn in front of Bruce, baring his own body and insecurities and vulnerabilities, makes his stomach twist and swoop like he’s diving on his broomstick. Dick has to clench his jaw to try and control the effect those thoughts have on his body in the middle of a compartment filled with his friends. 

 

His elbow is jostled accidently by Barbara, sitting next to him and gesticulating wildly in her conversation with Karen, but Dick hardly notices it until Zatanna leans across Wally and asks his opinion on something. He can’t remember his answer the second it leaves his mouth and for the next half-hour Dick has to reel his mind in from the pits of his subconscious to take part in whatever discussion holds court, but as soon as there’s a moment he can withdraw from the conversation he does so. There are a few odd looks tossed Dick’s way after that, courtesy of his distraction and absorption, but Kaldur redirects the conversation and Wally, Conner and Barbara are used to the occasional silences that mean Dick is wandering through his own head; between them they divert curiosity to let Dick stare off and wrangle his feelings into a semblance of order.

 

God, he shudders to think what the general reaction would be if his friends knew the direction his thoughts are taking him. Not for the first time Dick is supremely grateful magic has yet to divine a way to read others’ minds – or their hearts.

 

He’s in love with Bruce, he has no doubt about that. They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but it was when Bruce came to teach at Hogwarts that Dick began unconsciously comparing him to everyone else who’d caught his eye. After four years of only seeing Bruce on the holidays, having him in the castle was a feast for a boy who didn’t know he was hungry, and he was always there in the back of Dick’s mind. As Wally vacillated between mooning after some of the older girls and sniping with Artemis, as Conner finally took the next step in the puppy eye saga he and Megan had been playing for over a year, as the rest of his friends decided that they should probably do something with all the hormones puberty saw fit to flush through their bodies, everyone – male or female – who caught Dick’s eye fell short in some way or fashion.

 

The heat that raced across his skin when Bruce caught his eye, or the surge of something in the pit of his stomach when a drop of sweat curved its way down Bruce’s bare muscles in the Room of Requirement, were his first indications that his heart had nailed its pennant to the good ship Wayne, but it wasn’t really until he’d been in Bruce’s study that night, shaking and exhausted, and felt so safe, wanted and warm curled up by Bruce’s side, that Dick realised he was head over heels and unlikely to ever find solid ground again. 

                                                                          

He shifts against the window, torn briefly from his thoughts once more by a howl of consternation from Mal as a jet of goo from a Gobstone hits his chest, and clicks open his watch. Tracing a fingertip over the inscription, Dick looks out over the rolling farmlands, the scenery becoming tamer the further away from the Scottish wilds they get. It had taken almost a year for Dick to accept he was in love with Bruce and believe it was actually something that had a chance of being returned, but he’s not sure precisely when he felt confident he was no longer seeing things that were purely wishful thinking, the night before his birthday notwithstanding. It was more like a bowl gradually being filled up by each drop of rain, from looks lingering a little longer than usual to a hand on the small of his back as Bruce stepped aside for Dick to go through a door first, from Bruce’s own dwindling dating life and preference for Dick’s company at Wayne Enterprise events to Bruce’s general distaste of discussions between Dick and Alfred about that term’s romantic gossip. Dick isn’t quite egotistical enough to think Bruce was ever jealous of the girls in his year, but…well, he did leave the dinner table one night in the Christmas holidays of sixth year after a discussion of mistletoe in a temper that, if he wasn’t a world-class battle-hardened Auror, Dick might feel tempted to call a brooding sulk.

 

The summer holidays at the end of sixth year were far more useful in his deliberations. They were some of the best he’s ever had, and not just because of their fantastic trek through the Carpathians: only so many evenings spent at each other’s side, either out in moonlit woods or in the inn talking quietly over the day’s happenings, could go by without reaffirming how well they fit together. As soon as he was fairly confident that even if Bruce did not yet feel something for him too it could only be a matter of a few smiles, Dick had been planning for the future.

 

Dick has no doubt it’ll take a bit more than his silver tongue to convince Bruce to give them a chance, but he knows that it could be so good, for both of them. He knows he’s good for Bruce; he’s always been able to bring a smile to Bruce’s face and he's the only one able to successfully curb the reckless edge of Bruce’s actions when out in the field together. Plus, all the flings Bruce has had just go to prove that Bruce has never been with someone who understands him, emotionally connects with him, accepts all of him, loves his darkness as well as the light he tries so hard to believe in. Dick loves all of him and knows that in turn Bruce is the best match for him too. He always has been. Dick grew up among people who loved him in a huge circus family: he needs love and people around him, and being the object of Bruce’s focus, the light of his life, suits Dick perfectly. His loss made him a little selfish, he thinks, selfish and greedy, because now that he has someone who cherishes him, who holds him in the centre of his attention, Dick has no intention of letting him go.

 

The feeling extends to his friends, too. The train reaches the outskirts of London a few hours later, the sun hovering in the afternoon sky, and they start gathering all their things together, trying to think positively about new changes and future possibilities instead of leaving behind a comfortable environment where friends and teachers were no more than a few doors away. 

 

“Cheer up,” Dick says, rousing himself at last from his contemplation, “we have contracts mandating we keep in touch, remember? Hey, how about a N.E.W.Ts party at the manor in July?”

 

“Yeah! Good idea,” Wally says, looking more cheerful already. “The results should turn up middle of July, how’s the weekend after that?”

 

“I’ll keep it free,” agrees Conner. 

 

“Excellent,” says Kaldur. “On that note, Mayor Curry sent me a letter about the Atlanta-On-Sea annual summer festival. It’s held the week after next, and I would very much enjoy seeing you all there whenever you can make it. The festival lasts for a week, and he assured me the kite show and the boat races are shaping up to be better than ever this year.”

 

“I loved the sea salt we bought last time,” Megan says, brightening up, “everyone in my family said how much it flavoured the stew I made.”

 

“See, we’re not going to stop seeing each other just because we’ve graduated,” Karen says. “I like these plans.”

 

The train pulls into King’s Cross thirty minutes later, and the general mood finally lightens. With a screech of metal on metal and the scream of the horn, the train grinds to a halt and the guards blow their whistles as doors burst open.

 

Students stream out of the train and the small platform on this side of the magical barrier is filled with the hustle and bustle of collecting luggage and pets, loading it onto trolleys, finding friends and siblings, and waiting for the guard to gesture them through to the Muggle side of the station. Dick heaves his trunk onto a trolley, perches a very loud Etraxsus on top, and waits for Wally, Artemis and Barbara before walking to the barrier.

 

A minute later they’re gestured through, and Wally skips off to throw his arms around his parents. Mrs Crock is waiting next to them in her wheelchair and Artemis drops to her knees to hug her mother; Jim Gordon is nearby and steps forward to wrap his arms around Barbara, kissing her forehead as she squeezes him tightly. Dick scans the crowds for Alfred and spots his neat chauffeur’s cap over near the Wests. 

 

“Welcome home, Master Dick,” the butler says, smiling fondly at him as Dick pushes his trolley over. 

 

“Hi, Alfred,” he answers, and is allowed a brief hug. “It’s good to be back.”

 

“Indeed, and congratulations on completing your seven years of schooling. You might even be fit for society now.”

 

Dick groans, “Do I have to?” and pretends not to notice the teasing gleam in Alfred’s eyes. “I just have to say bye and then I’m ready to head home.”

 

“Very good, sir. I’ll wait here with your things.”

 

Dick nods and wends his way back through the crowd. He finds Karen, Mal and their families first, and hugs them goodbye with a promise to meet up in Atlanta-On-Sea before making his way to the Gordons. Thanking Jim for his birthday present once more, he makes an appointment with the Head of the Auror Office for late July to discuss entry preparation and then wraps Barbara in his own bear hug. She kisses his cheek as they separate. 

 

“Have a lovely holiday, Dick,” she says, “and I expect to see you over for dinner no later than the end of June, am I clear?” 

 

“As crystal, my lady,” he grins. “Drive safely, and I’ll see you soon.”

 

Zatanna and her father are talking to Megan’s oldest sister Marie, come to collect Megan and Garfield, and Dick ruffles Garfield’s hair before saying goodbye to Megan and Zatanna. Luckily Conner is nearby so Dick doesn’t have to make his way through the wall of overjoyed first year parents, and Dick tries without much success to ambush Clark, already lifting his brother’s trunk like it doesn’t weigh a thing. Dick also apparently doesn’t weigh a thing, and he wriggles with half-hearted objection as Clark squeezes him hard enough to see white dancing in front of his eyes. 

 

“Tragic story,” Lois commentates, pretending her water bottle is a microphone, “Hogwarts student squeezed to pulp by overenthusiastic welcome. In other news, _Daily Prophet_ journalist on the run with Auror on his tail.”

 

Clark laughs and releases a wheezing Dick, who’s then pulled into a headlock by Conner and his hair ruffled beyond belief. “Agh, not you too!”

 

“Don’t think too hard,” Conner says, finally releasing him, “it’s supposed to be a holiday before you dive into Auror tests.”

 

“Alright, alright,” Dick yields, trying without success to repair the damage done to his hair. “No studying for a week, cross my heart and hope to fly.”

 

“We’ll probably have to see you down at the farm to make sure you’re keeping that promise,” Clark says, grinning, “and you know how good Ma is about guilting young boys who don’t know when to close their books.”

 

Both Conner and Dick wince. “Cruel and unusual punishment, Clark,” Dick huffs, “but since you mention it, I suppose I could stand to have some more of Mrs Kent’s pie. You know, if you twisted my arm.”

 

“It’s such a hardship,” Lois commiserates. “Off with you, Dick. Mr Pennyworth is probably wondering where you are, and Conner has three months’ worth of chores to look forward to.” 

 

Conner groans and Dick grins, tossing the family a jaunty wave as he goes to say goodbye to Raquel. Kaldur then tugs him into a hug where he’s standing with his mother, and they organise a time to meet up in Atlanta-On-Sea. A promise is extracted to keep Kaldur updated about his romantic endeavours, and Dick is released to go and find Artemis and Wally. Greeting all the Allen-West-Garricks and thanking both Barry and Iris and Mr and Mrs West for his birthday gifts in person takes a few minutes, as does promising Paula Crock that yes, he is eating and sleeping enough, and no, Artemis wasn’t rebellious this year at all, but he finally gets a moment to say goodbye for now to Artemis and then to Wally. 

 

For one wild moment it feels like Dick’s adrift in this new future without the limits of Hogwarts to contain him, and he clings a little harder to Wally than he meant to. His best friend doesn’t comment, only tightens his grip too. For seven years Wally’s been the brother Dick had never had and had lost in his cousin, and apart from a jarring period in fifth year, when Wally finally got up enough courage to ask Artemis out and in that first honeymoon phase of a relationship hadn’t spent much time in Dick’s company with either Artemis or talking about Artemis, Wally has been his closest, constant companion.

 

For a moment Dick regrets not telling Wally earlier about his plans, because he’s honestly a little bit terrified, but for at least the last year he couldn’t quite admit them to himself without worrying that the simple act of voicing them aloud would either make them disappear or make them irrevocably real. Telling Wally also meant opening himself to Wally’s judgement. Whether that would be good or bad, Dick isn’t sure. He doesn’t think Wally would stop being friends with him after finding out Dick is more than a little bit in love with his guardian, a badass Auror fourteen years his senior and a teacher at their school, but Wally might try to help and then expose him accidentally, or he might try and talk Dick out of it, concern for Dick leading him to point out everything that he considers wrong about being in love with your guardian, a badass Auror fourteen years your senior and a teacher at your school. 

 

Well, if things go to plan Dick will just have to trust in their friendship. Double-dates with Wally and Artemis actually sound hilarious, now he thinks about it.

 

“Remember, if anything goes batshit insane out there – well, any more than usual – my fireplace is open,” Wally says as they break apart, grabbing Dick by the shoulders and shaking him. “Always, dude. I’d rather you were bleeding out in my living room than the ass-end of nowhere.”

 

Dick laughs. “Thanks, man. You too, okay? And we’ve still got that Rogue’s Gallery concert to book in November, yeah?”

 

“Yeah,” Wally says, and offers him a ceremonial first bump. Dick accepts it, and they grin like the schoolboys they once were, on the Hogwarts Express for the first time.

 

“See you later,” Dick says, pinning a grin onto his face, and slips away back to Alfred as Wally waves, the sea of parents, relations and students closing behind him.

 


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, the final chapter! Cavity-inducing fluff ahead; I hope to goodness they're in character but so help me, they shall be happy! Thank you so much for all your encouragement, kudos and feedback - it really made my first foray into multichapter fics something special :) 
> 
> I hope you enjoy!
> 
> See you next time,
> 
> Antiquity

Even with the subtle magical modifications on the Bentley and Alfred’s secret shortcuts, the drive out of London to Wayne Manor takes almost three hours. Etraxsus is finally pacified by some mince Alfred brought from the manor, and the lack of screeching means they can finally themselves think. Alfred asks about N.E.W.Ts, his friends and his plans for the future, and Dick chatters on, trying to ignore the butterflies in his stomach as they finally pull off the motorway and loop around the town which lies a mile in front of Wayne Manor. 

 

As they pull up at the majestic wrought iron gates, which open in obedience to a commanding flick of the wand from Alfred, Dick opens his door, the lure of the manor’s rolling green lawns, vibrant flowerbeds and thick leafy green trees too strong to ignore. “I’ll walk up, Alfred. The train was a little stuffy and I want to stretch my legs. The weather’s perfect.”

 

“Very good, Master Dick. Your trunk will be waiting in your room.”

 

“Do you mind not unpacking it?” Dick asks a little diffidently from where he’s perched half in and half out of the car. “I want to go through all of my Hogwarts stuff.”

 

“Do I mind not unpacking your many, many books, broomstick, cauldron, ingredients, and crumpled robes? Heavens, Master Dick, I beg you, don’t deprive me of my only annual joy.”

 

“If sarcasm was a broomstick, Alfred, you’d beat Barry’s world record from England to Cape Town with time for tea,” Dick laughs, and shuts the door behind him with a soft clunk. The Bentley accelerates gently up the driveway, and Dick takes a moment to admire the grounds and let the breeze snuffle at his hair and face like a playful terrier, breathing in the green fresh scents of the gardens, before beginning to wander up towards the Manor, creamy sandstone bright against the clear blue sky and the afternoon sun turning the whole world mellow and gold. 

 

He pulls his wand out of his pocket just for the hell of it, casting levitation spells on the garden gnomes – the ceramic ones, not the live creatures – and changing the colour of the flowers by the estate wall in celebration of finally being legally allowed to perform magic outside of Hogwarts. He feels free and untethered, and as Dick creates little bursts of mini-fireworks around him the sensations are both exhilarating and terrifying.

 

After ten minutes of meandering through the gardens Dick heads over to the little courtyard at the back of the house, where a wood and wrought iron bench is set under a vine-covered gazebo. It’s bordered by a whole collection of seasonal flowers so something is always in bloom, and Dick makes his way over to admire the roses Alfred is particularly fond of. 

 

He comes around the corner of the manor and freezes mid-step. Bruce is sitting on the bench, elbows on the back of the seat and staring off down the east lawn in the jeans and soft grey t-shirt that mean he’s been home for a while. Teachers usually Apparate instead of catching the train, but for as long as he’s been teaching Bruce has arrived home later than Alfred and Dick. 

 

He doesn’t have more than a second to process the sight before Bruce turns his head and straightens up, alerted to Dick’s presence by the odd twig and stone crunching under his feet. 

 

“Dick?” Bruce catches his eye and stands, and Dick resumes his stroll forward, pulling his hands out of his jeans pockets. 

 

“Hi, Bruce,” he says, proud his calm cheerfulness betrays no hint of the maelstrom of nerves whirling around in his stomach. “I didn’t know you were home already. Didn’t you have to clean out your office and everything?”

 

He’s made it to the paved alcove by the time he’s finished speaking, and they both hover there for a moment until Bruce gestures to the bench beside him and sits back down. Dick joins him, a casual thirty centimetres or so between them as he settles back against the wood. 

 

“Unlike some of my colleagues,” he says dryly, “I didn’t start packing at the last minute. There wasn’t that much to pack, in the end. The classroom and office are ready for Dinah.”

 

“So she is coming back to teach?” Dick asks, swivelling his torso so he can better see Bruce’s profile. 

 

“Yes, she wants to return to England for a few years. From what I gather, it’s also partly to see if she and Oliver Queen can finally work things out between them and try for a long-term relationship.”

 

Forget just his torso, Dick pulls his legs up under him and turns sideways to stare at Bruce face-on. “They’re actually going to try properly? Asterous! About time those two got things sorted.”

 

Bruce turns to face him too, faintly amused. “I didn’t know you were following this saga.”

 

“Are you kidding?” Dick answers, grinning. “We were all waiting for this when she accepted the I.C.W. posting, but Ollie was too chicken to try anything even in Belgium, which is the third greatest importer of Queen Consolidated goods. It’s about time he got his head out of his ass; Dinah isn’t going to wait forever.”

 

“I didn’t take you for an agony aunt,” Bruce says, smiling.

 

“Pssh,” Dick flips his fingers expressively and tosses his head, “once you get into sixth year all everyone talks about is the latest hook-up.”

 

“Is that so?” Bruce asks, his voice a little lower, and suddenly Dick’s aware of how close they’re sitting now. The breeze ripples gently through the flowers but the daffodils could all dance to a 30-piece orchestra and Dick wouldn’t look away; a moment of breathless stillness passes and then he leans forward, cups a hand around the back of Bruce’s neck and kisses him.

 

His lips are warm and a little dry, the angle a little off, but Dick tilts his head slightly and _there_ – that – just closed mouth to closed mouth and that orchestra might just be playing after all in the soft darkness behind Dick’s closed eyes as his heart _leaps_ in heedless joy.

 

It begins to tumble a second later as Dick realises Bruce is not kissing him back.

 

He freezes, swears his heart stops – begins to pull back – but then there are warm, calloused hands gentle on his face, and Bruce’s lips begin to move under his own. They are kissing, now, a shared choice, Bruce is kissing him back and Dick feels the ice thaw from his spine as he relaxes into it.

 

More than eight years of working together, reading the other’s slightest move, can only mean they find the best angle after a few seconds’ searching, can only mean they’re in sync almost as soon as the kiss begins. It starts as something simple, chaste and careful, Bruce’s mouth and strong jaw and slight rasp of stubble so different to the girls Dick has kissed before, but it’s the best kiss Dick’s ever had. It feels like his heart will burst as Bruce’s hands stroke across his face, neck, shoulders, cup his cheek and trace the slash of his collarbones beneath his t-shirt.

 

He murmurs something breathless, something shaky and tremulous, against Bruce’s lips as he draws a sharp breath in through his nose, and he allows his own hands to explore, one through Bruce’s hair and the other down across broad shoulders and sculpted chest. Bruce smiles under his mouth and the kiss grows a little harder, firmer, months of waiting finally over as Bruce nips teasingly at his bottom lip. Dick starts, pressing his body closer until his chest is flush against Bruce’s side, and dares to touch the tip of his tongue to the seam of Bruce’s lips. He shivers in delight at the wordless rumble deep in Bruce’s chest but just as he tilts his head again for another angle, mouth opening almost shyly beneath Bruce’s own, Bruce is gentling the kiss. He draws back until he can brush several light, soft kisses across Dick’s mouth and then disengages with a last, firmer kiss and a faint pop.

 

Dick doesn’t want to pull away, might find it physically impossible to try, and rests his forehead against Bruce’s instead. An unstoppable smile curves his lips but Dick focuses on his breathing until he can think in actual sentences rather than sensory fragments, and then leans back just far enough to meet Bruce’s eye. 

 

That Bruce too is a little out of breath is a compliment, and Dick is suddenly shy, ecstatic, terrified and so happy it hurts all at once.

 

“Just –” he stops to clear his throat and rests his head on Bruce’s shoulder as he tucks himself up against the man’s side. “Just so you know, everyone else was talking about the latest hook-ups; I was too busy trying not to stare when you’d work out in the Room of Requirement, and you have no idea how hard that was.”

 

He feels Bruce chuckle more than he hears him. “Oh, trust me, Dick, I know exactly how _hard_ it was.”

 

Dick starts at the innuendo, laughs and shudders in delight, but their silent connection seems to be heightened by physical intimacy and he can also feel the tension beginning to thread through Bruce’s frame. Dick sits up straight so he can look Bruce in the eye but leaves one hand on Bruce’s forearm as the arms around his waist retreat and the other on Bruce’s shoulder, fingers resting against the nape of his neck. Half a lifetime of Auror work has accustomed Bruce to fighting back his own wants and needs, so determined as he is to prevent what happened to his parents, to Dick’s, to their childhood selves, from happening to anyone else, but Dick has no intention of letting him win this. 

 

“Alright,” he says quietly, holding Bruce’s gaze, “no running. Talk to me.”

 

This time Bruce is to one to break eye contact and look away but a moment later he lifts his gaze back to Dick’s. That he hasn’t tried to make a break for it is definitely encouraging. “Do you still want this?”

 

“Yes,” Dick says definitively. “I wouldn’t have kissed you if I didn’t.” He sees a flicker of doubt in Bruce’s eyes and frowns. “I wouldn’t have, Bruce. I know what I want, and this isn’t some teenage crush.”

 

“No, I know, I – I didn’t mean to doubt you,” Bruce replies quickly, resting his fingertips on Dick’s knee. “I just...you are young, Dick, compared to me as well as in the eyes of the world.”

 

“Compared to you, maybe, but like I said in December, you of all people know I haven’t been a child for years.”

 

“I know,” Bruce says softly, acknowledging their shared tragedy, “but you were my ward.”

 

“Your ward, yes, but people grow up, change. I grew up mostly away from you at Hogwarts, and I still came back to you. Besides, like I said, you can’t honestly tell me you thought of me as just a child. You would never have let me hunt Dark Wizards at the age of ten if that’s what you thought. Another reason I’m not too young for you – who else understands that? Who else understands you and your commitment to your job and the demands of being an Auror and the way you think and work?” 

 

Bruce smiles slightly, and carefully, slowly, rests his hand fully on Dick’s knee. “You saved me just as much – more – than I saved you.”

 

A delighted flush rises up to his cheeks and Dick has to fight not to lower his eyes, cheapen this by playing coy. He knows Bruce loves him – both as a kindred soul, a friend, a partner, and now as an equal, a lover – but to hear out loud just how much he means to Bruce is a rare embarrassment of riches. “Without you I wouldn’t be here,” he says simply. “Together we’ve always been able to do anything. Remember the Swedish Shortsnout?”

 

“I try not to,” Bruce says wryly, hand warm on Dick’s knee, and if he wasn’t too intent on bringing Bruce around to his point of view Dick would swiftly find that distracting. “Evisceration, exsanguination and cremation aren’t topics with which I routinely occupy my mind.”

 

Dick laughs joyously at Bruce’s teasing. “But we weren’t eviscerated, exsanguinated or cremated: the moral of the story is we make a badass team! No one can doubt that. There’ll always be people thinking the worst, no matter what anyone says, and I don’t care what they think. There will still be people willing to defend us. Kaldur knows, he worked it out without me saying anything, and says we have his full support.”

 

“Really?”

 

Dick nods, “Those who matter don’t mind, and those who mind don’t matter. Do you care so much? I know – I do know you’ll have more to face than me,” he says, dropping his eyes in the first hint of uncertainty. “Tell me this isn’t what you want, Bruce, and I’ll – I’ll try to back off. Tell me truthfully if this isn’t what you want, instead of what you think you shouldn’t have, and I’ll…”

 

Dick can’t quite let his deepest fears see the light and trails off into loaded silence. He lifts his eyes but Bruce is still and near-inscrutable; his courage begins to falter and Dick focuses on the small scar on Bruce’s chin instead, heart sinking. The awful moment stretches out, but just as the sick feeling in his stomach decides to unfurl, Bruce’s hand brushes along his cheek. Dick jerks his head up, hoping against hope – Bruce trails his fingers up along his temple and into his hair, smoothing it away from Dick’s face. 

 

“I wouldn’t have kissed you if I didn’t want this,” Bruce echoes, brushing his knuckles across Dick’s cheek. “I wouldn’t have kissed you if you didn’t want this, either. Others’ opinions don’t matter to me. As long as you promise me that this is something you want, promise to tell me if anything changes, if you don’t like something, if I’m hurting you in any way –”

 

“Yes,” Dick says, breathless as his heart swells and tries to take over his chest, “yes, I want this, want you, want whatever we can be together.”

 

“Do you promise to tell me if anything changes?” Bruce asks sternly, lifting his other hand to Dick’s chin and making sure he meets his eyes. 

 

“I promise,” Dick says, moving his own hand to stroke the short hair at the back of Bruce’s neck. He feels another smile tugging at his mouth, and at the dawning look of tentative happiness on Bruce’s own face he lets it free, a sweep of joy across his face better than any Cheering Charm, headier than any Amortentia, more thrilling that a hundred-foot dive on his Solarflare. Dick can no more resist kissing Bruce again than he can ignore the Snitch right in front of his nose. 

 

This time it’s breathless, passionate, electric: Bruce slips his hands under the hem of Dick’s t-shirt and rests them on bare skin of his waist, drawing circles and tracing lines, and Dick shivers, pushing himself closer. He runs his hands through Bruce’s hair again and again because he can, because he wants to, and for every soft groan at the teasing flicker of Bruce’s tongue Bruce sighs too, like he’s just as affected by Dick as Dick is by him, and that’s just as intoxicating as the press and slide of lips against lips. 

 

Oh, when Bruce’s tongue finally slips into Dick’s mouth, it’s – his brain shorts out completely, leaving only sensation in its wake.

 

Dick has to pull away this time to breathe, lungs heaving like he’s run a marathon and lips red and tingling. Bruce chuckles, nudging him with his nose as Dick tries to uncurl his fingers from Bruce’s hair, but keeps just out of reach when Dick tries to recapture his mouth.

 

Dick groans and smushes his face into Bruce’s shoulder. “What scruple of conscience now?”

 

“No scruple, just practicality. We can’t – this can’t come out for at least another few months, preferably until you’re at least well into your Auror training. There’ll be no stopping the whispers but if we spend at least the first part of your training apart, we can avoid most of the accusations of nepotism and abuse of position.”

 

“I know. I’m in this for the long haul, Bruce. I don’t mind keeping it a secret for as long as necessary.” Dick lifts his head from Bruce’s shoulder and presses a brief peck to his lips. “Are you...” Suddenly the question is stupid and useless, and he ducks his head, embarrassed. If Bruce didn’t mean this he wouldn’t have started it, but his inexperience is doing its best to mutate into insecurity. 

 

“Am I in this for the long haul?” Bruce asks gently, thumb caressing Dick’s jaw and palm warm against his neck. “Yes.”

 

Tension abruptly flows out of him, and he sags against Bruce. “Sorry, I know,” he says, “I just...you have much more experience than I do.”

 

“Another reason you had to be the one make the first move,” Bruce responds, running a hand up and down Dick’s back. 

 

“You wouldn’t have?” 

 

“No,” Bruce says softly, “no matter how much I wanted to...I couldn’t.”

 

“So you did want to,” Dick says, fishing as carefully as he can. “Was that what happened in the first term of sixth year?”

 

He feels Bruce’s sigh gust out of him and swivels to look up into his face. The frown on Bruce’s forehead just won’t do, and Dick smooths it away with a gentle fingertip. “I’m not accusing you, Bruce. It unsettled me a bit, the distance, but if it was for the reason I think, I know you had to reset yourself a little.”

 

Bruce is watching him with a hint of something uncomprehending in his face, like he can’t quite believe Dick is tucked under his arm, telling him these things. 

 

“What?” Dick asks, a little self-consciously. 

 

“Nothing,” Bruce murmurs, lifting a hand to trace his eyebrow and cheek with the pad of his thumb. Dick leans into the caress, surprised but pleased when Bruce draws him into another kiss. He can tell Bruce means it to be soft but with the weight of the year behind it, it swiftly turns into something else: hard and deep and so hot he must be on fire, Bruce’s tongue doing wondrous, illegal things which serve to reinforce how much more experienced he really is.

 

Dick is most certainly emphatically not complaining, and it’s not just because he doesn’t have either the breath or the brainpower.

 

“ _What_?” he says again when he can breathe, tangling his fingers with Bruce’s on his knee. 

 

“It’s just…you can absolve me of any wrongdoing when I deliberately and immaturely ran away from you, distanced myself though I knew it would affect you…You were in my office, two weeks into term,” he continues, almost inaudible as he whispers the confession into Dick’s hair, “I don’t know why it was different; you were testing some herbs in the fireplace and when you smiled up at me, kneeling at the hearth and illuminated by the flames, I just…you were so beautiful, and whatever I’d tried telling myself about not wanting you crumbled into ash. But you were still nearly four months away from turning sixteen, and I couldn’t…”

 

Dick doesn’t even remember the evening that clearly but any surprise at the circumstances is swiftly overridden by the delighted joy in Bruce’s confession, in hearing that Bruce thinks he’s beautiful, that such an ordinary evening could be the climax of at least a few months’ slow realisation…Dick surges up again, careful not to knock teeth but too eager to mind as he kisses Bruce again. 

 

There are three words crowding onto his tongue, but considering that Bruce’s mouth is sealed over his, and this is only the third time his tongue is thoroughly acquainting itself with Bruce’s, it’s not time just yet. 

 

“Well, of course I forgive you,” he manages to say once he has his breath back, fumbling for his own words as he gazes up at Bruce, mouth red and lips deliciously tender – gazes like a love struck teenager, and he’s never felt quite so in sympathy with the rest of his age group as now, when he used to look at his peers and wonder at their differences. “I know you, Bruce. I’m not going to change you, I know what I’m getting into and I know how you work. As long as you come back to me, you can have as many broody, solitary days as you want – within reason, naturally. Maybe no more than one a month.”

 

“Is that so?” Bruce murmurs, smiling at his teasing tone and nuzzling at his ear, pressing kisses and little nips along Dick’s jaw. 

 

“That is so,” Dick replies hazily, “and we can work on cutting down to maybe one every quarter or so.”

 

“I take it you’re determined to see me happy,” Bruce says softly, drawing Dick’s hand up to his lips to brush a kiss to the knuckles. Dick lets him for a few moments and then gently slips his hand away so he can cradle Bruce’s face instead. 

 

“Yes,” he says, eyes meeting Bruce’s unwaveringly, “I am.”

 

Unbelieving, cautious joy sweeps across Bruce’s face. No magic can quite equal this, nor can any shimmering potion, but for once Hogwarts is on neither of their minds as they decide that talking has paid its dues. Kissing is an infinitely better idea, and so they do, again and again and again until the sound of Alfred preparing afternoon tea in the kitchen rouses them and leads them inside the grand old manor, warm sunlight and perfumed gardens slipping in after them through the open windows. 

 

* * *

 

The early morning breeze carries the same hints of fresh lawn, earth and flowers after a midnight storm nearly three weeks later, and the sunlight pools on the floor and spills over the bed like someone has splashed a can of golden paint. The curtains at the open window of the master bedroom aren’t closed properly, and as the light gradually creeps across Dick’s eyelids he stirs reluctantly awake.

 

Blinking does nothing but let the sun right into his eyes and he groans, finding enough coordination to roll over in Bruce’s arms and tuck his face into the hollow of Bruce’s throat. His wand is on the bedside table but he can’t be bothered to reach out, and Alfred is not a huge fan of magic being used on furniture; the butler has a very special Look reserved for anyone who tries. Once he’s stopped squirming around Dick settles back in to doze, happiness an ever-present glow in his chest that he’s here in Bruce’s bed, in Bruce’s arms. They haven’t gone any further than several intense, glorious hours making out around the manor since they returned from Hogwarts, despite Dick’s best efforts, but so far being in a relationship with Bruce has been an easy, seamless transition, and it’s everything he ever dreamed of.

 

No, it’s better: he’s awake and it’s _real_. Even when they’re both awake in the middle of night, torn from sleep either by their own nightmares or the other’s, it’s still precious – shadows under eyes and listless limbs in the morning are more than worth it when Bruce starts awake and rather than rolling away, telling Dick _never mind, go back to sleep, sorry I woke you, I’ve got some paperwork to do_ , he lets himself be coaxed back into bed and held and petted back to something approaching equanimity. When Dick too pulls himself from the grips of fear with eyelashes wet and clumped together, it’s to find Bruce no more than a few centimetres away, solid and sure and silent as he folds Dick into every nook and cranny of his own body to allow his heartbeat to lull Dick into calm.

 

The news hasn’t spread – so far Kaldur and probably Clark are the only two people outside the manor to know – but Dick has plans to tell Wally at the N.E.W.T party he’s hosting next week and then gradually let the others know. He’s too happy in this golden bubble with Bruce to even contemplate shouting it from the rooftops, and they’re both sufficiently well-known in the Ministry and at their favourite restaurants in London that going out together doesn’t look that different to how they used to go to dinner as guardian and ward. Besides, neither of them care overmuch for public displays of affection, even if they could indulge: they have a sprawling, quiet manor house and vast estate, after all, in which to lose themselves for hours on end. It turns out that going for long romantic walks are a secret pleasure of Bruce’s – well, it’s either that or Dick’s powers of persuasion have increased exponentially now his tongue has been in Bruce’s mouth.

 

Dick continues to doze for another half-hour, but when the sunlight starts creeping over more than half the bed and warms his back almost to sweating point he gives up on sleep and thinks about his upcoming Auror application tests, stroking a hand gently up and down Bruce’s muscled side. He’s just trying to align his three-month overseas training with Wally’s exchange semester to the Swiss Ministry of Magic and their world-class Potions research and development program when Bruce stirs, tugging Dick closer as he shifts onto his back to try and avoid the sunlight. 

 

Dick laughs softly, pressing a kiss to Bruce’s throat. “We didn’t close the curtains all the way, I don’t think you can escape.”

 

“I noticed,” Bruce mumbles, blinking awake, and even if he had a hundred thousand years Dick would never tire of the awed, almost unbelieving expression that comes into Bruce’s eyes when he sees Dick curled up next to him. It might just take a hundred thousand years to convince Bruce that he isn’t going anywhere, Dick reflects, pushing himself up on an elbow to hover over his partner. 

 

“Morning,” he says, smiling down at Bruce and ducking his head to brush a kiss to Bruce’s mouth. Bruce lifts a hand to stroke his cheek and comb through his bedhead before echoing the sentiment and returning the kiss. “Have any plans today?”

 

“I’ve been meaning to stop in at Wayne Enterprises and see what Lucius has planned for the release of the new Stardust,” Bruce says, tugging him down so Dick is sprawled across his chest. “You?”

 

“Not much,” Dick says, “Raquel said she’d let me know if she was going to Diagon Alley today, I’m still waiting for my _Treatise on Seventeenth Century Arithmancy_ to arrive in Flourish and Blotts.”

 

Before Bruce can answer, there’s a knock at the bedroom door. “Morning, Master Bruce, Master Dick.”

 

Dick freezes. Alfred knows about the change in their relationship – how could he not? – but so far he’s been nothing but tacitly approving, staying out of their way when glassy stares start focusing exclusively on lips. He is fairly sure, though, that Alfred had some words with Bruce on the subject during the first few days of their relationship: Bruce came into the study one evening with that particular look of self-doubt and -castigation he wears so bloody well and it took Dick hours to coax him back into relaxation, culminating only when he grabbed the infuriatingly stubborn man by his ears and sealed his mouth over Bruce’s. If Alfred had really disapproved, Bruce wouldn’t have let himself kiss Dick back, so the butler doesn’t seem displeased or upset, and hasn’t served any cold dishes or starched the laundry. Nevertheless, they both descend to the kitchen for breakfast after spending the night in the master bedroom rather than have Alfred come in to wake them. Why the sudden change in routine?

 

Bruce strokes a hand down his back, obviously noticing his tension, and gently shifts him off his chest so he can sit up against the headboard. Both of them are wearing sleep pants, so it’s not like they’re going to offend Alfred’s sensibilities, but he’s never come in while both of them are in bed. Dick has no idea what to do but Bruce is calling good morning to Alfred, telling him to come in, and he pulls himself up to sit cross-legged by Bruce’s side, fingers toying nervously with the sheet at his waist. Bruce rests a hand on his knee under the covers as Alfred opens the door, breakfast tray in his hands. 

 

“Good morning, sirs. Forgive the intrusion, but the post has arrived.” The butler approaches the bed and rests the tray of coffee, fruit and waffles on Bruce’s nightstand, a pile of envelopes by the milk. 

 

“Thank you, Alfred,” Bruce says, stretching out a hand for the letters. 

 

“We live to serve, sir,” Alfred says primly, and Dick grins, nerves settling as he watches Alfred open the curtains all the way and potter around the room as usual. 

 

“Ah!” Bruce says, and Dick turns to look at him. “I thought it would show up soon.” He hands a thick, official envelope, stamped with both the Ministry and the Hogwarts crest, to Mr R. Grayson, Wayne Manor, Windsor, Berkshire.

 

An indecipherable noise, rather like air let out of a balloon, escapes from Dick and he lunges forward to seize the envelope, hands shaking and stomach suddenly doing its best to mimic his last Quidditch match. He’s aware of Alfred drawing near, the reason for breakfast in bed suddenly clear, and of Bruce waiting warm and solid by his side, but Dick’s whole world has narrowed down to the N.E.W.T results in his hands. 

 

For a brief moment he’s frozen, making no move to open the letter, but then Bruce squeezes his knee and air comes rushing back into his lungs. With trembling fingers Dick slits the top of the envelope, pulls out the sheet within and unfolds it to stare down at the results. 

 

_NASTILY EXHAUSTING WIZARDING TEST RESULTS_

 

_Pass Grades: Outstanding (O)                               Fail Grades: Poor (P)_

_Exceeds Expectations (E)                                     Dreadful (D)_

_Acceptable (A)                                                    Troll (T)_

 

_RICHARD JOHN GRAYSON HAS ACHIEVED:_

_Alchemy                                              O_

_Arithmancy                                          O_

_Astronomy                                           O_

_Care of Magical Creatures                    O_

_Charms                                                O_

_Defence Against the Dark Arts             O_

_Herbology                                            O_

_Potions                                                O_

_Study of Ancient Runes                        O_

_Transfiguration                                    O_

_Your expression of interest in the Auror Office, Department of Magical Law Enforcement, has been accepted. Please refer to the Application Guides provided by the Auror Office and submit your paperwork to Ms Renee Montoya, Assistant Chief Auror and Head of Recruitment, by the first of October._  

 

He reads it again, staring blankly at the ten perfect Os on the page, and then reads it a third time just to be sure. It feels like the ocean is welling up inside Dick, buoyant exultation and relief that all his hard work has finally, finally paid off, and as the feelings swell he flings himself forward into Bruce’s chest, dropping the letter and letting out some sort of high-pitched squeal. 

 

“Dick?” Bruce asks, worried, and snatches up the letter, one arm anchoring Dick to his side and holding him tight. “Oh, Dick, this is excellent!” Shoving the letter into Alfred’s waiting hands, Bruce wraps his other arm around Dick and hugs him tightly, pressing kisses to the side of his face. Dick’s smile is beginning to hurt and when Alfred too beams at him, congratulating him and assuring him that straight Os call for a celebratory dinner that night with Dick’s favourite dishes, the delight overwhelms him and escapes into laughter, pride, joy and relief present in equal measure. 

 

The perfect circles on the page look up at him like little eyes, but when Alfred folds up the letter, puts it on the bedside table and quietly retreats from the bedroom, the round shape of the O is the shape of the kiss Bruce presses to Dick’s lips, the shape of his own lips when he chases after Bruce’s mouth, the shape and sound of the ‘oh!’ as the kiss moves away from his lips and down his throat. It’s the shape of his mouth as he gasps out a moan when Bruce gently, carefully presses into him for the first time, and it’s the shape their arms make when they wrap them around each other, blissful and sated on their bed. 

 

O is coincidently the shape of Dick’s friends’ eyes and mouths when he eventually tells them the news, and O is also the shape, many years later, of the rings for their fingers, but that’s another story. 

 

For now, O is the shape of the future, endless infinity. Under the sunlight the sprawl of limbs gets a little sweaty but neither of them move for a long time, perfectly content in the moment, brought and bound together by hard work, love, and a little bit of magic. 

 

 

FIN

 


End file.
